New research suggesting people need 10-plus hours of exercise each week for optimal heart health has, perhaps predictably, gone down like a lead balloon. There are myriad reasons why you live the life you do – umpteen work, social and family commitments among them. It is highly unlikely you have 10 hours spare to devote to exercise. Fortunately, there is more nuance to the research than meets the eye. The study tracked more than 17,000 people aged 40-69 over roughly eight years, investigating the relationship between daily movement, cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2 max) and incidences of cardiovascular disease. It found that current World Health Organisation and NHS physical activity guidelines (150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity) offer a “modest risk reduction”, while “optimal cardiovascular protection” may require upwards of 560 minutes per week in fit people and 610 minutes per week in unfit people. But this news isn’t as daunting as it first appears. The good newsThis is a good study with interesting results. But it exists within a sea of research into the impact of activity levels on health. As a fitness journalist, I have covered many of these studies and interviewed the authors. As a fitness coach, I have seen their results applied in real-time. My overriding takeaway is that fitness is less like an on-off button and more like a dimmer switch. You don’t hit 610 minutes of exercise in a week and suddenly enjoy a raft of heart health benefits – rather, any positive change to your activity levels or exercise schedule tends to nudge your health in the right direction.As Professor Aiden Doherty, professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Oxford, writes: “The data in the paper very clearly support current World Health Organisation physical activity guidelines… People who are able to do more activity have even lower risk, so every move counts.”Most of us are not athletes or billionaires chasing immortality. We cannot live an “optimal” life, nor do we want to. But we can give ourselves every opportunity to live a long, happy, healthy life without 90-minute daily workouts. Here is how to do just that. Read more: I specialise in coaching people aged 40-plus – do these six things for immediate resultsAn optimal exercise routine is not the aim for most people, nor should it be. (Getty/iStock)How to improve your health in two minutes “The NHS physical activity guidelines are built on a solid evidence base showing that this level of activity significantly reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers and premature death,” says Jack McNamara, a clinical exercise physiologist, strength coach and course leader at the University of East London. “The problem isn't that the guidelines are insufficient; it's that around a third of UK adults don’t meet them.”He suggests exercise snacks as a possible solution and an alternative to inflexible fitness plans. “Exercise snacks are brief [one- to five-minute] bursts of vigorous activity scattered throughout the day,” he explains. The aim is to weave a few into each day at opportune moments. “A recent meta-analysis found that even very short bouts, such as climbing a few flights of stairs vigorously a few times daily, can meaningfully improve cardiorespiratory fitness in previously inactive people.”You can also build in bite-sized strength training sessions and mobility exercises. Our feature on exercise snacking has some ideas to help you get started. Read more: These expert-approved five-minute daily workouts can improve flexibility, strength and longevityExercise snacking is one of the best known methods for fitting impactful amounts of movement into a busy schedule (Getty/iStock)How to improve your health in five minutes “About 98 per cent of the world has the capacity to walk, so there is a huge amount of untapped potential there for benefitting your health,” says physiotherapist and Walk: Your Life Depends On It author Dr Milica McDowell. She and co-author Dr Courtney Conley recommend “micro-walks” to gently bump up your daily activity levels. This is a five-minute (roughly 500 steps) stroll you can slot into your day when you have a free moment. Try identifying short routes near places you spend a lot of time, such as your home or office, then squeeze them in where possible. Read more: Walking experts reveal the number of daily steps you need to boost health – and it’s not 10,000Identifying a five-minute walking route you can do near your office is a simple way to fit more movement into your day (PA)How to improve heart health in 15 minutes “When you go walking, it regulates the glucose in your bloodstream and helps with insulin sensitivity,” says Dr Conley. “That's why one of the best times to go for a walk is right after you eat.”This can lessen stress on your pancreas, reducing your risk of diabetes in the long run. A small study published in the International Journal of General Medicine also suggests that taking a 15-minute walk after each meal could be more effective for weight loss than the same amount of walking done elsewhere in the day. Read more: Expert says doing this for 15 minutes after meals can protect your health for decades to comeShort strength training workouts offer impressive bang for your buck, improving many areas of health and fitness (Getty/iStock)How to improve your health in 20 minutes Strength training is one of the best things you can do for your health, forging a more robust body that can stand up to the rigours of daily life. But most people, and beginners in particular, don’t need to spend an hour in the gym to see impressive results. Experienced personal trainer Danny Matranga says a 20-minute workout comprising just four exercises can hit your whole body. “When you're a novice, you can go into the gym and do a pushing exercise and a pulling exercise for your upper body, something like a squat for the front of your legs, something like a deadlift for the back of your legs, and then you can walk away after four exercises having trained every single muscle in your body,” he says.You can find an example workout in the video below. Read more: There’s a new golden rule for strength training – expert coaches reveal everything you need to knowHow to improve your health in 30 minutes Upping the intensity of your daily movement is one of the most straightforward levers you can pull to enjoy greater health benefits. “When it comes to light activity, some movement is better than none,” says Professor Emmanual Stamatakis, a leading physical activity researcher at the University of Sydney. “Moving around instead of sitting down is good for metabolic disease and energy expenditure.“But when it comes to functional capacity, and cardiorespiratory fitness in particular, you need intensity to challenge your physiology. Vigorous-intensity activity [anything that gets you out of breath, to the point you can only do it for a few minutes at a time] will force the heart to strengthen its muscle, improving its capacity to pump blood. Very few of these things happen with light intensity activity, even in large amounts.” Intensity is relative. A fit person will need a more challenging workout than a less fit person to achieve vigorous-intensity. For less fit people, vigorous-intensity could be achieved by making your daily steps more difficult. This might mean tackling a steep hill or set of stairs, upping the pace (a cadence of 130-plus steps per minute is often associated with vigorous-intensity exercise) or rucking – carrying a backpack with some weight in it. Japanese Walking is an easy way to try this. Simply walk for three minutes at a brisk pace, immediately followed by three minutes of walking at a relaxed place. Repeat this sequence for a total of five rounds, and you are done in 30 minutes. A more experienced exerciser could apply this format to running – run at a challenging pace for three minutes, then a relaxed pace for three minutes, for five rounds.Read more: Scientists share six easy ways to increase the health benefits of your daily walkIncreasing the intensity of your walk by upping the pace or tackling a hill can deliver greater health benefits (PA)How to improve your health in 45 minutesIf you can set aside 45 minutes to exercise, twice per week, you have enough time to work on most facets of fitness. Start the session with a warm-up, followed by some mobility moves, then complete a short strength training workout as prescribed above. Finish with some form of running or exercise machine for 10-15 minutes. This could take many forms. For example, spending 15 steady minutes on a rowing machine, or completing 10 rounds of 30 seconds fast into 30 seconds slow on an exercise bike.By the end of this 45-minute workout, you will have challenged your heart, lungs, muscles and mobility, improving in all areas. Read more: The easiest way to strengthen your entire body, according to this expert coachA man and a woman exercising in the gym (Alamy/PA)The best time-effective routine for better health The unavoidable truth from studies I’ve read and experts I’ve interviewed is that, when it comes to movement, more tends to be better. This is why I would always encourage people to work towards exceeding the World Health Organisation’s 150 minutes per week minimum prescription. It also partly explains the results of the recent study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. But the 10 hours per week figure many headlines hone in on is linked to “optimal” results for heart health. For the average person, “optimal” is not the aim. We simply need to do enough to support our lives. I like the three-step fitness plan below, inspired by strength coach Darren Ellis, for simplifying things. Step oneWalk 7,000 steps a dayStep twoTwo full-body strength training sessions per weekStep threeDo an aerobic activity (such as running, cycling, swimming, walking or many other sports) that gets you out of breath twice per weekThis plan also comes with a caveat: just do what you can. Life is invariably busy and unpredictable. Despite what some influencers say, we don’t all have the same 24 hours in a day. But if you can squeeze a bit more movement into each day using the techniques above, your mind and body will benefit. Read more: Why people who don’t exercise aren’t lazy – and the simple fix that makes it easier