Higher doses of health

It turns out that you need less time to keep fit than has been thought; in fact, these students were notable for “similar improvements in muscle health and performance induced by two such diverse training strategies” as 30 seconds of exercise every 4 minutes (2.5 hours a fortnight) vs 90-120 minutes a day (10.5 hours per fortnight).

The researchers concluded that “short bursts of intense exercise may be an effective option for individuals who cite ‘lack of time’ as a major impediment to fitness”.

The basic idea is short, vigorous exercises with rest periods in between.

The article links to others, for example, on how hiking can cure depression & more vigorous exercise can help a person to heal faster.

Comments

Major said…

The strategy was 4-6 cycles of 30 seconds exercise plus 4 minutes recovery per day not 30 seconds exercise every 4 minutes (which would make you a very serious gym junkie at roughly 168 hours a fortnight).

22 September, 2006 12:29

Leon RJ Brooks said…

Uyup, sorry. Thanks, Major, for reading that and correcting it.

22 September, 2006 16:27

Major said…

You are slipping Leon! You didn't spot my deliberate error! The actual number is 42 hours per fortnight (still a pretty impressive gym junkie 8-)

22 September, 2006 22:56

Leon RJ Brooks said…

Well, OK, thanks for reading it and twice correcting it. (-:

24 September, 2006 07:59

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

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I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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