Article #59141

Everyone these days wants to optimise their workouts, but when a study seems too good to be true, it usually is

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

We live in an increasingly polarised world – and I’m not talking about politics, I’m talking about exercise. There’s a fitness community obsessed with constant optimisation and hacks: how can you get from 50 press-ups to 100, from an eight-minute mile to seven minutes, or increase your deadlifts from body weight to double or triple body weight – ideally using just “one weird trick” or novel method no one has seen before.

It seems as if no one is happy with basic fitness or steady progress. Or people are overly concerned with what’s secretly holding them back, from sleep to “I had a couple of glasses of wine … it ruined three days of my life” (that’s Steven Bartlett’s podcast).

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh