The Olympics offer a fascinating window into the diets and workout routines of some of the world\u2019s finest athletes, and it would be easy to feel inadequate in the face of these examples of the human body\u2019s awesome potential.<\/p>\n
We tend to gravitate to extraordinary outliers, like the athletes in the Winter Games. Lindsay Vonn\u2019s maniacal pursuit of Olympic glory, skiing on a torn ACL only to crash and break her femur<\/a>, is treated as aspirational<\/a>. If you\u2019re not pushing yourself to the absolute limit, then what\u2019s the point? One way to interpret the enormous gaps between the share of Americans<\/a> who say<\/a> exercising more is important<\/a> and the share who actually get enough exercise<\/a> is that people become daunted by what they think is necessary \u2014 and give up.<\/p>\n But we shouldn\u2019t think that way. In fact, a major new study should reframe how we think about physical activity and our health.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Good Medicine newsletter<\/p>\n Our political wellness landscape has shifted: new leaders, shady science, contradictory advice, broken trust, and overwhelming systems. How is anyone supposed to make sense of it all? Vox\u2019s senior correspondent Dylan Scott<\/a> has been on the health beat for more than a decade, and every week, he\u2019ll wade into sticky debates, answer fair questions, and contextualize what\u2019s happening in American health care policy. Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n We end up talking so much about exercise. One of the pleasures of following Olympics every two years is the coverage of the extreme \u2014 and truly bizarre<\/a> \u2014 lengths to which world-class athletes go to gain an edge.<\/p>\n But those extreme fitness obsessions can be misguided. My colleague Hannah Seo recently asked experts whether there is such a thing as too much exercise<\/a>. And they told her, actually, yes, for most people, at a certain point, there are diminishing returns.<\/p>\n The big benefits are for people who are otherwise not active and start to do something. And, according to this remarkable new research, the threshold for seeing real health benefits is shockingly low. Forget too much exercise; there\u2019s really no such thing as too little exercise. Every minute helps. A little movement can save your life.<\/p>\n And even if you do exercise, this is advice you should heed. Exercise has numerous benefits<\/a>. But most of us have busy lives; our careers are not dedicated to our bodies. Trying to squeeze your routine into its own little time slot is tempting. If you can find the right 30-minute workout to fit into your schedule, you\u2019ll be all set.<\/p>\n You\u2019re not Lindsay Vonn, after all.<\/p>\n But there is also a danger in thinking of exercise as its own isolated activity, something you do for a specific, short period of time before you move on with the rest of your day. A half hour of rigorous exercise is great. But if the rest of your time is spent on the couch, you rapidly start to lose those benefits<\/a>.<\/p>\n