Great news!  30-40 mins intense exercise per day reduces mortality.  That is less than previously thought.  Great news is that if you’re logging WODs for the 20 in 2021 you are probably already doing that:)
 
Not so great news.  Unless you are also logging some serious daily walking time, you are probably not deriving the full potential benefit from your training.  This study suggests that fat metabolism is more influenced by sedentary habits than by your exercise habits.  In fact individuals walking fewer than 5000 steps per day did not experience the fat oxidation benefits of exercise.  8500+ steps per day were necessary to prevent exercise resistance.


So while your 30-40 minute dose of daily exercise will help reduce your risk of all-cause mortality, it is the hour a day of brisk walking that amplifies your exercise results and helps you stay lean.

In 40 Years with a Whistle, Dan John makes note of a couple other studies to this effect:  Reducing steps from 10,000 to 2,000 steps per day for 2 weeks saw healthy adults develop metabolic derangement and pre-diabetic conditions.  Blood sugar rose, insulin sensitivity declined, cholesterol profiles became less healthy, legs lost muscle mass while participants gained abdominal fat.  Most returned to normal when regular activity levels were resumed but a few of the volunteers exhibited lasting negative effects.  In a similar experiment with participants over age 65 results were more dramatic to the extent that some had to be removed from the study as they’d developed full blown type 2 diabetes! 

Conclusion:
Walking on its own is not enough to keep you healthy but exercise without walking is not enough to keep you lean and healthy!  It’s not an either or scenario people, both are necessary.  High intensity and low intensity complement each other.  Your body was designed to move!

Saturday WOD
No equipment?  No problem.  Today we’re supposed to do 10 minutes each of scales and L-sits.  So while I bet that everyone with access to a barbell will probably focus on the lifts, if you do not have heavy weights you can practice your power clean with light weights and do sets of scales and L-sits in between to develop your gymnastics strength!

Equipment: Barbell or substitute, PVC pipe or substitute

Warm Up
1 min L-Sit
1 min Full Body Rock
1 min Scales
1 min Deadlifts
1 min Deadlift, Jump & Shrug
1 min Power Cleans

Tech
Work up to working weight

WOD
Power Clean
5-3-3-1-1-1-1

Early Finishers
Scales & L-Sits