Exercise "snacks" are the latest trend in trying to get fit. You might not have time to squeeze in a 20 minute workout but science says tiny bursts of activity have just as many benefits. These "snack" sized exercises should challenge you enough to increase your heart rate. You only need to do this for a minute or less according to Dr. Scott Lear, the Pfizer/Heart and Stroke Foundation Chair in Cardiovascular Prevention Research at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. He says "They’re somewhere between that short walk to the water cooler in pre-pandemic times and high-intensity interval training."
An example of these short sweet snacks could be 20 seconds of squat jumps, stair climbing, burpees or sprinting down the block for 60 seconds. These help build your cardiorespiratory fitness which is a big indicator of your overall health. One study found that healthy sedentary women improved their cardiorespiratory fitness by doing 20 seconds of vigorous stair climbing 3 times a day for 3 weeks.
Another group was observed by, Martin Gibala, PH.D. and professor of Kinesiology at McCaster University in Ontario, involving inactive young adults doing 20 second bike sprints 3 times a day. After 6 weeks of these small workouts, volunteers cardiorespiratory fitness improved by 9%. Gibala explains "The precise reasons why exercise snacks work has yet to be determined, but they may improve the heart's pumping capacity and ability to transport oxygen throughout the body."
Preliminary research was done with a group of people who typically sat for 8 hours a day. It found that if those people did five 4-second cycling sprints every hour during their 8 hour work day had 31% lower triglyceride levels and it boosted their fat metabolism by 43%.
It does not matter what fitness level you are at, exercise snacks can benefit everyone. Of course, inactive people will gain the most from these activities. Current guidelines for the amount of exercise you need calls for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week. When you don't have much time small workouts can be a great option. Dr. Martin Gibala says "The messaging now is anything is better than nothing and every little bit counts."
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