[readthenotes1]

"exercise doesn't mean planned / scheduled exercise, like going to the gym."

Most of the people I see in the gym are sitting on the benches on their phone 9 minutes out of 10. I'm pretty sure going to the gym is not helping at all...

[mancerayder]

If you're doing heavy compound exercises like 3x5, 5x3 squats, you kind of need to wait three minutes in between! Even adding something in between like press or pullups is quite hard on the nervous system.

The people who walk 45m on the treadmill while watching a show, or people who sit around chit chatting, yes... A waste of space.

[readthenotes1]

So what sort of exercise regime legitimizes 10-minute pauses between short sets of moderate weight?

[nickburns]

Calling it 'the gym' sort of conflates its two distinct sections: the one containing cardio equipment, and the other containing strength training/bodybuilding equipment. So-called 'work capacity' aside, there's almost zero overlap between the two sections.

Whether someone's effectively strength training/bodybuilding or not, which is the section I think you refer to—nobody reasonably believes that does anything significant for cardiovascular health, which is the topic being dicussed here.