The Nuance
What’s the Least Amount of Exercise You Need to Stay Healthy?
Daily walking targets are the easiest way for the average person to get their minimum daily dose of physical activity
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The Roman physician Galen is considered a forefather of the study of anatomy and medicine. Writing during the second century, he emphasized the need for exercise every day and throughout life — not just for the prevention of disease, but for the promotion of proper digestive health, organ function, and general well-being.
According to the medical historian Jack Berryman, Galen recommended exercise that was vigorous enough to increase the breath, but not so intense that it left a person in pain. Like many of the great Greek thinkers who came before him, Galen prized “moderation in all things,” and that extended to exercise.
Fast forward almost 2,000 years, and many of Galen’s views — about the necessity of movement and exercise, and also on the benefits of moderation — are back in vogue among today’s exercise researchers. “We’re physiologically meant to be active — it’s how we evolved,” says Dr. Tim Church, an adjunct professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University.
A lot of Church’s work has examined different doses of exercise and their effects on health. Like Galen, Church says immoderate approaches to exercise can lead to overuse injuries or even long-term health concerns. (While not all experts agree, there’s some evidence that very heavy endurance training may promote heart trouble.)
On the other hand, Church says it’s beyond doubt that small, regular bouts of physical activity can pay huge health dividends. “Whether you’re talking about preventing heart disease, cancer, or [supporting] mental health, most of the strong evidence we have shows that even a little bit of activity goes a long way,” he says.
