It can be very busy at work and fitting fitness sessions into your day can be difficult with deadlines looming.
Quick and simple is the answer. Exercise snacking is the perfect way to boost our physical wellbeing at work.
Try and fit your exercise into short bursts throughout the day rather than one long session at the gym.
Up and down the office stairs a couple of times and a few squats is a perfect example of an exercise snack.
Exercising in small chunks can help you burn more calories and lose more weight. It will improve your blood glucose and blood pressure to a greater degree than a full 30-minute gym session.
Try just one or two of five to ten-minute snacks a day and build it up to three ten-minute snacks or six five-minute snacks per day every day. You should be aiming for a total of 30 mins of exercise snacks in total per day. Remember, every minute counts.
The snacks should be moderately intense, so things like the office stairs are good. Or a brisk walk.
One of the main reasons people don’t exercise is that they say they don’t have the time. During the pandemic, the nation’s average step count fell by around 50%.
In 2019, a series of studies found that breaking your exercise into smaller sessions was just as beneficial as a full gym session for cardiorespiratory and blood pressure, but it was even better for reducing weight, body fat and LDL cholesterol.
Short bursts of exercise use more energy. This is because our heart rate and metabolism, move up from a standing start more often. Plus, every time we stop exercising our higher metabolism continues for a while. So, three or six starts and stops are better than one.
In a study of people with type 2 diabetes, researchers compared the effect of 30 minutes of normal walking compared to six one-minute bursts of intensive walking. The results were staggeringly different. The exercise snackers reduced their blood sugar on the day in question and the day after the exercise too. For those who just did the 30 minute’s walk, there was no reduction at all.
Don’t forget a little stretch first.
The answer is simple, and the evidence is overwhelming. Quick and often is the smart way to exercise at work.