63-Year-Old Tries 10-Hour Weekly Exercise Challenge

At 63, Liz Hoggard had never taken a spin class until sweating through her first session made her realize just how much harder she could push herself. The London journalist had been following standard health advice of 150 minutes of moderate exercise weekly, but new research suggested she needed to quadruple that amount.

A British Journal of Sports Medicine study tracking 17,000 adults found that while 150 minutes of weekly exercise reduced heart disease risk by just 8 percent, ramping up to 10 hours dropped that risk by 30 percent. For someone with a family history of heart disease and rising cholesterol, the findings hit close to home.

Hoggard decided to test whether a working professional with a busy life could actually manage this level of commitment. She already swam regularly, did Pilates, walked 10,000 steps daily, and lifted weights weekly, but her challenge required adding high-intensity workouts that pushed her heart rate above 80 percent of its maximum.

The experiment came with logistical hurdles. She had to schedule everything from gym sessions to overnight stays with her partner around her fitness goals. She started wearing a 7kg weighted vest around London, even throwing a glittery cover over it for evening events.

Why This Inspires

What makes Hoggard's story powerful is her honesty about the difficulty and her refusal to pretend it was easy. She complained about the expense of new equipment and classes. She struggled with downloading fitness apps and coordinating her schedule.

But something shifted by week four. Her cardio score jumped 33 percent. She stopped getting breathless on hills. The fitness tracker that initially rated her as "moderate" started giving her "excellent" scores for steady state training.

Professor Sanjay Sharma, a cardiology adviser who has worked with Olympic athletes and major sporting bodies, confirmed that even moderate activity like housework or walking to the grocery store counts toward the goal. The key is raising your heart rate enough that conversation becomes slightly difficult while staying below the vigorous threshold.

Hoggard found herself becoming more organized and ambitious. The challenge wasn't just physical but mental, requiring her to prioritize her health in ways she hadn't before. After years of gentle swimming and assuming she was doing enough, she discovered her body could handle far more intensity than she'd given it credit for.

The takeaway isn't that everyone needs to immediately commit to 10 hours weekly. But for those with risk factors like family history of heart disease or rising cholesterol, gradually building up activity levels could make a meaningful difference in long-term health outcomes.