By Emmanuel Stamatakis - Professor of Physical Activity, Lifestyle, and Population Health, University of Sydney
Have you recently carried heavy shopping bags up a few flights of stairs? Or run the last 100 metres to the station to catch your train? If you have, you may have unknowingly been doing a style of exercise called high-intensity incidental physical activity.
For those of us who are time poor, high intensity exercise can be incorporated into our daily routines - Image Credit: Cardmaverick via iStock / HDR tune by Universal-Sci
Our paper, published today in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, shows this type of regular, incidental activity that gets you huffing and puffing is likely to produce health benefits, even if you do it in 30-second bursts, spread over the day.
In fact, incorporating more high intensity activity into our daily routines – whether that’s by vacuuming the carpet with vigour or walking uphill to buy your lunch – could be the key to helping all of us get some high quality exercise each day. And that includes people who are overweight and unfit.
Exercise regimes like high intensity interval training are safe and effective ways to boost fitness, but they’re often impractical. People with chronic conditions and most middle aged and older people, for example, will likely require supervision by a fitness professional.
Walking to and from the supermarket is a fine option if it’s not too far - Image Credit: Vera_petrunina via iStock / HDR tune by Universal-Sci
Aside from the practicalities, some people may find back-to-back bouts of very high exertion overwhelming and unpleasant.
But there are plenty of free and accessible ways to incorporate incidental physical activity into our routines, including:
replacing short car trips with fast walking, or cycling if it’s safe
walking up the stairs at a fast pace instead of using the lift
leaving the car at the edge of the shopping centre car park and carrying the shopping for 100m
doing three or four “walking sprints” during longer stretches of walking by stepping up your pace for 100-200 metres (until you feel your heart rate is increasing and you find yourself out of breath to the point that you find it hard to speak)
vigorous walking at a pace of about 130-140 steps per minute
looking for opportunities to walk uphill
taking your dog to an off-leash area and jogging for 30-90 seconds alongside the pup.
This type of incidental activity can make it easier to achieve the recommended 30 minutes of physical activity a day. It can also help boost fitness and make strenuous activity feel easier – even for those of us who are the least fit.
Source: The Conversation
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