> KKR - the idea here is to get in shape, not maintain a reasonable level of fitness.
I am in shape. I ran a 56 400m the other day. That's not competitive, but it's in shape. I average about 2.5 "workouts" per week, but it's not rare that I go a week without exercising at all. Nothing I do takes over 35 minutes, except for long bike rides, which I don't really do regularly.
Unless you're training for an endurance event, you do not need to spend a lot of time exercising to get into the top 20%. And if you ARE training for endurance I would recommend against it if your goal is health, because endurance athletes have health problems.
I'll ignore your "endurance athletes have health problems" phrase. Not sure how you are defining an "endurance event" nor sure if there's any empirical data to back that up.
The idea of the post, is not for those, such as yourself apparently, who are already in shape. Rather, it was written for those who are in different stages of trying to get into shape.
You're essentially arguing that quality of workout is more important than the quantity. I agree, but I think most people, including yourself probably block out a certain quantity of time -- by 35 minutes I suspect you mean the actual minutes you are working out. Great, but perhaps for others there are certain steps involved -- commute, warm-up, cool-down, stretch, et. al
While certainly 1/2 hour 2x/week is better than no work outs at all, it's not the quickest way to get in shape.
That being said, I do advocate start slowly -- I started just 3 days/week.