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Exercise Snacks - The Apeiron Life Perspective



What is it:

Lack of time is commonly mentioned as the biggest barrier to exercise. Convenient and safe access to exercise facilities and spaces can also hinder people’s motivation for regular physical activity. At the same time, sedentary behavior causes chronic metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease to keep rising.


If you don’t have an hour or more to spend a day working out, the good news is that you can deliver positive health effects in a very short time as long as you’re moving multiple times a day. Exercise or movement snacking is commonly described as brief spurts of vigorous activity spread throughout the day, lasting anywhere from 20 seconds to a couple of minutes. Exercise snacking doesn’t require specific equipment, space, or planning and can be done in the office, at home, at school, or pretty much anywhere. Some examples include brisk walking up a flight of stairs at the office, jumping jacks, squats, or pushups by your desk, or at home between meetings. The idea is to raise your heart rate to a moderate level for about a minute or two and repeat it a few times daily.


Research shows it can improve metabolic health and raise endurance for those who are otherwise inactive. But studies also show that exercise snacking can stave off some of the undesirable changes in our muscles and metabolic health that otherwise occur when we sit too long, even for people who otherwise exercise regularly.



Purported claims:

  • Improve cardiorespiratory fitness

  • Increase muscle strength

  • Counteract the negative metabolic effects of prolonged sitting

  • Improve muscles’ ability to use protein



What the science says:

A small Canadian study among college students investigated the effect of brief bouts of stair climbing exercise spread throughout the day on low cardiorespiratory fitness. Students who performed the continuous 60-step staircase exercise snack three times a day, three days a week with 1–4 h rest in between bouts had a higher peak oxygen uptake and peak power output after 6 weeks compared to the non-exercise group. Similarly, 18 middle-aged females demonstrated about 14% improvement in maximum oxygen uptake after three isolated 30-second Wingate tests (all-out cycling) were done four hours apart and performed thrice weekly over eight weeks.


A pilot study with older adults concluded that twice-daily exercise snacking could be a promising strategy to improve leg muscle function and size. Exercise snacking bouts consisted of five exercises, each lasting for one minute with the aim to complete as many repetitions as possible and a one-minute rest between exercises for 28 days. The sit-to-stand scores improved significantly (from 29 to 38) in the exercise group vs. the control group (no change). Also, the exercise group saw a notable increase in maximum leg power and a small increase in leg lean mass compared to the control group.


We’ve all heard the saying that “sitting is the new smoking.” Prolonged sitting can be associated with elevated increases in blood insulin concentration, decreased blood circulation, bad posture, obesity, etc. Thankfully, multiple studies have found that interrupting prolonged sitting with practical movement snacks could reduce metabolic risk and postprandial (after eating) glycemia and insulinemia in healthy adults. A recent study found that interrupting eight hours of prolonged sitting every 30 minutes with one minute of repeated sit-to-stand -movement or two minutes of treadmill walks lowered insulin concentrations following lunch. Short walks have previously been shown to be effective, but this was the first study to demonstrate that body-weight resistance exercises, such as repeated sit-to-stands, are just as effective for improving glycemic control in adults who engage in prolonged periods of sitting, but are otherwise healthy. Some researchers are going as far as saying that prolonged sitting can be so harmful to metabolic health that it almost cancels out any health benefits from a daily workout.


Interrupting long sitting bouts can also interfere with the body’s ability to use protein from a meal and build and repair muscles. A recent study with a small group of males and females found that breaking up 7.5 hours of continuous sitting with either 15 repetitions of body squats every 30 minutes or two minutes of walking improved the utilization of dietary amino acids, the building blocks of protein, for myofibrillar protein synthesis. Physical activity levels usually decrease as we age, and time spent sedentary typically increases, leading to rapid loss of muscle mass. However, the loss of skeletal muscle mass will start to diminish at a fairly young age if exercise is reduced. A study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise showed that when the daily step count was reduced by approximately 91% daily protein synthesis decreased by approximately 27% in just one week among healthy young men. Consequently, muscle atrophy was upregulated while cell growth and metabolism were downregulated.



Our take:

Exercise snacking is a practical approach to physical activity for people who have difficulty planning a continuous time to work out. The best part of exercise snacking is the practicality. It can be done anywhere (squats at the back of the airplane on a long flight? Yes!), and almost any activity that increases your heart rate and breathing can be an exercise snack. With little time commitment and no equipment or special attire required, it takes any excuse away from not moving daily.



Will this benefit you?

Absolutely! Exercise snacks can help you reach your fitness goals and boost energy in the middle of your day. Even if you have a regular exercise routine throughout the week, exercise snacks can break up the ills of chronic sitting since our body is not meant to be sedentary for a prolonged time. On an especially demanding and busy day, you can swap your longer workout for a set of exercise snacks sprinkled throughout the day to reap some of the health benefits of a longer session.



Still curious to try it? Here is what to keep an eye on:

Although walking at a swift pace is usually okay to do without warming up first, as with any vigorous movement, you don’t want to go from zero to 100 without giving your muscles and lungs a bit of time to adjust. And, of course, if you have a heart condition like arrhythmia, coronary artery disease, or any orthopedic issues, you should discuss doing exercise snacks with a healthcare provider first. At Apeiron Life, we have a team of qualified professionals who can assist with any movement, health, and lifestyle changes.


References and additional reading: 










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