UNITED STATES—Exercise is something that we all must do to maintain a healthy body and spirit. Lately reports have been surfacing left and right that the amount of time that you exercise is not as important anymore, but the level of intensity that you do has more impact on the body.

Ok, let’s say this is accurate, why has it been promoted for years that at least 30 minutes of physical activity is crucial to preventing diseases and other ailments to the body. I mean I think 30 minutes is a bit small for an exercise regimen, I would push that notion to 45-60 minutes a day, seven days a week.

While many people will argue they don’t have the time, and I’ll admit I’m one of those people at times. Think of what that hour of exercise each day can do to your body. It gives you the opportunity to live healthier and to live longer. So because this theory had become so important I wanted to try things out to see how it transpired.

I have exercise equipment in my home and one of the devices I utilize the most is the elliptical. It’s a device that helps build leg muscles, arm muscles and endurance and stamina in my opinion. Of course you can tackle different courses on the device which I have done on numerous occasions, which normally take about 30 minutes to complete. During that time frame, I probably burn around 150 calories.

Now, to counter this high intensity or time intensity debate I have done two things. First, I have just gotten on the elliptical and completed an entire course without timing myself and utilizing intensity to see how many calories I have burned. Second, I have timed the amount of calories I burn in 30 minutes on the elliptical; after those 30 minutes I stop. So what are the results?

With high intensity exercise, I learned that in around 12-15 minutes I can easily burn 150 calories. Yeah, what that says is that if I did high intensity exercising on the elliptical for 30 minutes I could easily burn 300 calories. When I just monitored 30 minutes on the elliptical I burned around 160 calories. That is quite interesting to say the least, as it has become apparent from my two practices that a high intensity exercise regimen does produce more results.

My only issue with that is I think it’s important for the body to be in motion longer than 15-20 minutes a day, so I try to balance things out. One day I might aim for high intensity, the next day the focus might be on the amount of time committed to the workout. With any exercising that you do, your body feels the results the following day, going high intensity could be a bit of a strain on the muscles and the body if you do it too much.

This isn’t to say that only devices should be used for high intensity, but you can do the normal exercises we have been taught as children. What would some of those things be? Well jumping jacks, push-ups and sit-ups to say the least. The key is to do them correctly, but also mix them up. Do 25 jumping jacks, 20 push-ups and then 25 sit-ups as quickly as possible.

And we can’t forget about the jump rope! It has been said time and time again that jump roping is one of the best exercises for the body because of the amount of calories that can be burned. Why do you think so many boxers implement the exercise in their daily regimen? It doesn’t matter if you’re inclined to perform high-intensity exercise or time intensity exercise, the key is to just exercise. A body in motion is 10 times better than a body not in motion at all.