Healing Aids... - Exercise - Putting Together A Program

The common guideline given by health practitioners is to do 20 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week and perhaps to add in some strength training exercises. Although most likely an attempt to procure sedentary people to begin exercising, the guildeline is not an optimal goal (though every bit of exercise helps). The Harvard Alumni Study showed that although 500 calories of aerobic exercise weekly (the equivalent of one hour) can help prevent diseases associated to being sedentary, 2,000 to 3,000 calories was the optimal benefit for overall good health. This translates into 4 hours of aerobic exercise weekly, which is not much when spread out evenly across 5 or 6 days. According to the study, exercise proved to be not beneficial nor harmful when that range was exceeded.