Ask Dr Adam: Is exercise snacking as effective as full workouts?
Despite the benefits of physical exercise being drilled into us on a near-daily basis by public health campaigns and social media posts, too many of us are still exercising far less than we should do. According to the World Health Organisation, up to 31% of adults don’t meet the basic recommended levels of movement: roughly 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week.
One thing that seems to consistently stand in the way of our collective plans to roll out an exercise mat is time – or the unabated busy nature of modern life, to be more precise. And that’s exactly where exercise snacking comes in: the trend for bite-size pockets of movement that effortlessly slot into slower moments of the day, without the need to block out hours for a full gym session.
These short but regular bursts of activity, lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes, can include anything from jogging on the spot and press-ups to squats while the kettle boils. But can a smattering of micro workouts really rival a full gym session? We asked sports nutritionist Dr Adam to explain.
Could exercise snacking actually be more effective?
One of the strongest arguments for exercise snacking is how it combats long periods of inactivity, which has been dubbed ‘the new smoking’ by some researchers, due to its links with heart disease.
“Being sedentary for more than four hours is really bad for your health,” affirms Dr Adam. “You’re better off having bits of movement during the day, getting up from your desk and walking around, than sitting for eight hours and then going to the gym for an all-out session.”
Indeed, a structured reformer pilates class in a fancy workout studio a couple of times per week is no doubt beneficial – but it’s only a small part of the health picture. “Exercise in a gym only accounts for a small proportion of our daily movement,” Dr Adam explains. “It’s all the other things that people do outside of the gym, dubbed ‘non-exercise’, that matter.”
If your day is mostly sedentary at a desk replying to emails, one workout may not offset it, despite how productive it feels in the moment. As Dr Adam explains: “If you’re compartmentalising all your physical activity into the gym, then overall, you’re probably not expending that much energy.”
Could exercise snacking have benefits for our health?
There’s some emerging data to suggest that short snacks specifically could have surprisingly big benefits.
According to a small study published in the journal Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, performing 15- to 30-second exercise snacks three times daily was shown to improve the cardiorespiratory fitness levels and exercise performance in inactive adults. The bursts of exercise included in the study were stair climbing and cycling.
Another study of 22,398 people found that people who reported they didn’t work out saw a 17% to 18% reduction in cancer incidence after they began doing just 3.4 to 3.6 minutes of vigorous physical activity daily, via bursts that lasted less than one or two minutes. Even more encouragingly, increasing their workout time by just a few extra minutes, to roughly 4.5 during the day, further slashed the risk of cancer by 31% to 32%.
When it comes to improving your athletic performance, Dr Adam is cautious, but says it depends on your current level of fitness. “It’s difficult to tell, really, because it depends on what it is that you’re doing and what you’re doing in between snacks,” he says.
“I would say it could be more effective, potentially, if you regularly skip the gym and are doing more movement during snacking than you’d do otherwise.”
But it’s the ease and accessibility that are the important point. “If it’s something that you could do in your office, then it may be easier to stick to than an early morning gym routine.” And as with everything in health, consistency tends to outweigh perfection.
The diet connection
Interestingly, in research settings, exercise snacking isn’t always just about squeezing movement into spare moments. It’s sometimes tied directly to how and when we eat.
“You’re almost snacking exercise in time to eating,” Dr Adam explains, referring to short bouts of activity performed before or after breakfast, lunch or dinner.
This timing isn’t arbitrary. In fact, it can have meaningful benefits for your metabolic health. “Just having physical activity either before or certainly after a meal is very beneficial in terms of how you can clear what you’re supplying in that meal,” he explains. “Your glucose excursions and clearance of lipids is improved.”
In other words, a short walk or jog up and down the stairs around mealtimes can help your body process nutrients more efficiently, or, as Dr Adam puts it, “you can lessen the burden of that meal by doing exercise either side.”
Snacks vs full workouts – do you need both?
Rather than choosing one approach, Dr Adam suggests combining them. “I wouldn’t pit one against the other,” he says. “Instead, you’d probably want to have some sort of mixture of both, because all exercise overlaps.
“There’s no such thing as purely aerobic or anaerobic exercise – every exercise has got a component of each, and intensity dictates duration. If you’re doing something high intensity, you’re naturally going to do it in a short amount of time, whereas low intensity, you can sustain for long periods.”
That said, Dr Adam says that exercise snacks could be specifically beneficial if you’re new to fitness and find the idea of an hour-long workout intimidating or demotivating. “With exercise, there’s a cumulative effect at play – when you become more physically active, it drives more physical activity, so you can start small and build the habit from there.”
