Physical activity guidelines tell us to do this, that, and the other.
- Engage in 150-300 of moderate to vigorous physical activity weekly
- Strength train twice per week
- Sit less every day
The formula works (lowers risk for major diseases), yet these tasks are recommended minimum requirements. Want more gains? Want better health outcomes? Then you need to engage more and different physical activities.
But This Takes Effort
Time and effort are required each day and week. Put your body to the test and you will achieve results. No effort, no results.
For some, the three this, thats, and the others are too effortful.
Maybe you can do more in less time?
How About An Exercise Snack Instead?
Exercise snacks are short bursts of purposeful activity distributed through the day, as opposed one longer bout of exercise lasting 30-40 minutes. Researchers coined the term to evaluate the effect of short bursts of activity on blood glucose levels following a meal (Francois et al, 2014).
An “exercise snack” is a catchy rebrand of “High-intensity interval training”, yet at much shorter intervals. It’s slick to present research findings this way.
(I mean…the rebrand brought me to write this blog).
The idea:
If I have a little exercise snack, then my food snack will take a better toll on my body.
Exercise snacks look like:
- Climbings stairs for 20 minutes 1,
Long story short – rather a couple of research articles later – those snacks do improve blood glucose levels and related biometrics. But to what degree do these findings makes sense for you? Does reducing “24 h mean glucose concentration by 0.7 ± 0.6 mmol” do anything for you? How about improving your shear rate (related to blood flow)?
And consider the populations: non-obese men, untrained seniors, and folks that are already insulin resistant.
Snacks Create Short-Term Thinking
This is not a ding on the research questions, and outcomes. I love research and these studies are part of the process. After all, these findings guide my work with clients.
The conflict is this: if we focus on achieving the biggest gain in the shortest amount of time, we are not considering the all of the environmental variables that contribute to an active or inactive lifestyle.
And how likely are you to meet 150-300 minute exercise recommendation by “snacking” 4-minutes here…2-minutes there?
Fitness Is A Long-Term Process
We must not lose sight that we must develop systems and to create the conditions in our life that allows us to be consistent. Taking 4-minute cycling breaks are wonderful if a bike is available, your work schedule allows it, and if you enjoy cycling. Climbing the stairs is an option if you know where the stairwell is and if you are not late to a meeting.
Exercise snacks are beneficial, the research is clear. But, think about how snacks work. Snacks supplement hunger in between larger meals. Thus, exercise snacks should supplement to entire physical activity meal. By not consuming an entire meal, snacks will only take you so far.
