Jog a few minutes each day, extend your life

Most Canadians don’t meet minimum physical activity recommendations, citing a lack of time as the main barrier.

But Martin Gibala, chair of McMaster’s kinesiology department, says that excuse just doesn’t cut it.

Gibala’s research has shown that short amounts of high-intensity training can be an efficient way of getting exercise.

“Brief sessions of interval training may provide an option for time-pressed individuals to improve cardio-respiratory fitness,” Gibala writes in the Globe and Mail. “But the trade-off is that the exercise needs to be very intense.”

Gibala writes that cardio-respiratory fitness is a marker of the functional status of the cardiovascular, respiratory and skeletal muscular systems, and increasing your cardio-respiratory fitness can help to extend your life.

Read Add cardio-respiratory fitness to the recipe for a longer life