The Most Effective Form Of Exercise.

It seems that the most effective form of exercise isn’t “exercise” at all.

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If you have recently carried your shopping up a few flights of stairs or scampered  the last 100 metres to catch your bus you may have unwittingly been doing a form of exercise the gurus call “high-intensity incidental physical activity”.

Published recently in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, a report tells us that this type of regular, incidental activity that gets you breathing hard is likely to produce health benefits, even if you do it in 30-second bursts, spread over the day.

In fact, including more high-intensity activity into our daily routines, whether that’s by energetically mopping the floors or walking to the shops to buy a  bottle of milk could be the key to helping all of us get some high quality exercise each day and that is especially true for people who are overweight and unfit.

So what constitutes high-intensity exercise?

Until recently most health authorities prescribed activity lasting for at least 10 continuous minutes, although there was no reliable scientific evidence behind this.

This recommendation was recently refuted by the United States Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Report, published in 2018.

The new guidelines state any movement, no matter how long it lasts, is good for our health and for our waistlines.

This appreciation for short episodes of physical activity aligns with the core principles of high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

HIIT is a enormously popular regime involving repeated short exercise sessions, from six seconds to four minutes, with rests from 30 seconds to four minutes in between.

Among a range of different regimens, we consistently see that any type of high-intensity interval training, irrespective of the number of repetitions, boosts fitness rapidly, and improves cardiovascular health and fitness.

That’s because when we regularly repeat even short bursts of intense exercise, we instruct our bodies to adjust, to get fitter, so we’re able to respond better to the physical demands of life or the next time we exercise strenuously.

The same principle is at play with secondary physical activities.

Even brief sessions like 20 seconds of stair-climbing, about 60 steps, repeated three times a day on three days per week over six weeks can lead to measurable improvements in heart and lung fitness.

This type of fitness indicates how well the cardiovascular systems are working, and the better it is working the lower the risk for future heart disease is.

In fact, research suggests physical activity intensity may be more important for the long-term health of middle-aged and older people than total duration.

So why don’t we get the exercise we need?

It seems the main reasons people don’t do enough exercise tend to include the cost, lack of time, lack of skills, and lack of motivation.

Exercise routines like high-intensity interval training are safe and effective ways to boost fitness, but they’re often unrealistic.

People with chronic medical conditions and most middle aged and older people, for example, will probably need supervision by a fitness professional.

Aside from the practicalities, some people may find back-to-back sessions of very high effort overwhelming and unpleasant.

But there are plenty of free and easily accessible ways to include incidental physical activity into our routines, including:

Replacing short car trips with fast walking, or cycling if it’s safe;

Walking up the stairs instead of using the lift;

Leaving the car at the edge of the shopping centre car park and carrying the bags that extra distance;

Doing three or four “walking sprints” during longer stretches of walking by stepping up your pace 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;

Energetic walking at a pace of about 100-120 steps per minute;

Looking for opportunities to walk uphill;

Taking your dog to an off-leash area and jogging for a while alongside your best friend.

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 energetic activity feel easier, even for those of us who are the least fit.

Short bursts of high intensity exercise is almost certainly better for weight loss.

So if you can couple your high-intensity incidental physical activity with bursts of high intensity interval training (Hiit) you  may find that it’s more effective for weight loss than longer less intense workouts.

The research, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, analysed results from 36 earlier studies.

Although all those who took part in a recent study lost weight, those doing Hiit saw almost a 30% greater weight loss.

The researchers cautioned that Hiit may not be suitable for everyone.

"Hiit might increase the risk of injury and impose higher cardiovascular stress," they said.

So, what does the study say?

Researchers from the Federal University of Goias, Brazil, analysed data from 576 men and 522 women of varying levels of fitness.

Interval training was defined as cardiovascular exercise which involved repeated brief bursts of intense effort, interspersed with recovery periods.

Cycling, swimming, running and boxing were included.

These workouts were compared with longer workouts, most of which were between 30 and 45 minutes of continuous moderate intensity.

All participants exercised for at least four weeks.

Those doing interval training lost on average 1.5kg (3.5lb) compared with the 1.1kg (2.5lb) lost by those doing lower intensity workouts.

Sprint interval training seemed to be particularly effective for weight loss, although researchers did caution that the wide variety of training programmes made it difficult to recommend one regime in particular.

The National Health Service in Britain currently recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity, such as cycling or brisk walking, every week.

A health and exercise scientist at the University of Stirling said the results were counter-intuitive as most people burned more calories during longer moderate exercise.

"There are two possible explanations," he said.

"Firstly, Hiit may lead to greater energy expenditure after exercise, for example metabolism may be increased for up to a day following a Hiit session.

"Secondly, after a high intensity interval training session, you may be less hungry.

He says, "In our research, we have shown that appetite hormones are indeed affected.

It is, however, not easy to study whether energy intake is reduced as a result of this in the longer term when following a Hiit routine, so at the moment we are still unsure exactly what the reason is."

Michael Mosley, who was introduced to high intensity interval training seven years ago while making the BBC Horizon documentary The Truth about Exercise, said:

"In 2012, I tested three lots of 20-second high intensity workouts on an exercise bike, three times a week.

My insulin sensitivity improved by 24%.

In the programme, we saw very impressive results with younger, unfit people.

The biggest problem with exercise is compensatory eating and relaxing afterwards, people go on a treadmill for 30 minutes, burn around 120 calories, then lie around and reward themselves with a muffin.

The theory with Hiit seems to be that it suppresses your appetite and targets the visceral fat in your gut.

It's not the calories you burn that matter - it's what you do next."

Wise words that all of us striving to lose weight should burn into our brains.

As always your thoughts are welcome, please leave your comments below.