Exercise Snacks
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In previous weeks, we’ve discussed one of the main dangers of working from home: too much sitting time. During a normal day at the office, the walks to and from your car, and to and from appointments and other commitments, all add up. These days, if you’re working from home, even if you’re getting in a lot of exercise otherwise, you’re probably sitting more than you ever have. This can be damaging to not only your physical health, but your mental health and work performance as well.
A few weeks ago, Alex Hutchinson wrote an article for the Globe and Mail about a recent finding from researcher, Dr. Jonathan Little. Dr. Little and his team at the University of British Columbia looked at something they call “exercise snacks”, an extreme form of sprint interval training. Sprint interval training is when you alternate between a very high-intensity exercise bout and a rest period. The duration and number of the exercise bouts vary depending on the protocol, however improvements in cardiovascular fitness and health have been measured in as little as 3 x 20-second sprints, interspersed with 3 minutes of rest (for a 10-minute workout in total!). The issue remains, however, that while sprint interval training takes very little time compared to longer, aerobic activities, people still struggle to do it.
Therefore, Dr. Little and his team wanted to see if there were still health benefits if people did 3 x 20-second exercise bouts, but instead of 3 minutes in between sprints, they rested for several hours in between work periods. The idea behind this was that because these little “exercise snacks” would be dispersed throughout the day, the exercise would be less daunting and people would be more likely to stick with it.
The research team had a group of volunteers perform classic sprint interval training: 3 x 20-second cycling sprints, interspersed with 3 minutes of rest. The other group performed the “exercise snacks” protocol: 3 x 20-second cycling sprints, interspersed throughout the day (between 1-4 hours in between each sprint). Both groups performed these exercises 3 times per week for 6 weeks. At the end of the 6 weeks, there was a similar improvement in cardiovascular fitness and cycling performance between the groups. This means that if people do just a single bout of very hard exercise, a few times per day, they will see significant improvements in cardiovascular fitness and overall health!
What can we take away from this?
Exercising for 20-seconds a few times per day can improve cardiovascular fitness, provided that it’s hard! Do something like a few flights of fast stairs or burpees to really get your heart rate up.
These “exercise snacks” take less time than a break to go to the bathroom or grab a drink of water.
In addition to improving fitness, this idea of “exercise snacks” also gets you up and moving several times per day - something that’s particularly important if you’re working from home right now!
The Globe and Mail article by Alex Hutchinson can be found here:
And the summary of the original research article is here!
