Exercising needed for the typical office worker
Our bodies are designed to move, but our lifestyles are designed to minimise movement and effort, so we have a unique quandary: how do we balance the needs of our bodies with the construct of modern living?
With so few people meeting the guidelines for the physical activity needed to maintain our health, public health researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the least amount of stimulus our bodies need to have an effect.
From these origins have emerged the concepts of exercise snacks (a three-second maximal muscle contraction, three times a week is enough to make you stronger) and VILPA (vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity like dashing up the stairs or sprinting for the bus can reduce cancer risk, heart disease risk and the likelihood of dying prematurely).
Now, researchers from University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre and University College London, have looked at what happens when you swap one activity for another and the amount we need for comparable benefits.
For the study, published in the European Heart Journal, researchers analysed data of 15,246 adults from five countries, including Australia, to see how the way we move through the day relates to heart health.
For 24 hours, the participants wore activity trackers on their thigh, which can detect the type of movement with greater accuracy, and had multiple measures of their heart health taken.
The researchers modelled the outcomes based on replacing sedentary behaviour (periods of sitting or lying outside of sleep) with the different behaviours – standing, LIPA (low intensity physical activity like walking around the office or house), MVPA (moderate-to-vigorous physical activity like running, cycling, inclined stepping, or walking quickly) and sleep.
On average, the participants slept for 7.7 hours, spent 10.4 hours sedentary, 3.1 hours standing, 1.5 hours doing LIPA and 1.3 hours doing moderate to vigorous activity.
Every move we make matters, but the more intense it is, the less of it is needed to get results.
Swapping between 4 and 12 minutes of any behaviour with moderate to vigorous activity was enough to make a significant change to heart health, including BMI, waist circumference and blood glucose levels.
“Roughly similar theoretical cardiometabolic benefits were present when sitting time was replaced by standing, LIPA, or sleep, although the amounts replaced would need to be much larger, closer to one-to-two hours per day,” said lead author, Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis.
“The jury is still out on whether adding a few bursts of moderate or vigorous intensity activity per day is more feasible than replacing one-to-two hours of e.g. sitting with standing or light intensity activity a day. What is encouraging is that people seem to have options, at least when it comes to the cardiometabolic markers we examined in this study.”
This is good news to those confined to their desks during the day: instead of spending the day seated, breaking it up with longer periods of standing can help, as can taking the stairs, picking up your pace to catch the bus and taking regular short breaks to walk around.
While the inflammatory, metabolic, or vascular effects of moderate or vigorous intensity activity contribute to improved cardiovascular health, the effects of low intensity activities are more subtle and, the authors say, may be more meaningful for mental or musculoskeletal health.
And beyond about 7.7 hours sleep a night, the researchers found that any theoretical cardiometabolic benefits from increased sleep are secondary to the direct physiological benefits of doing more physical activity.
“This study adds to this emerging field by demonstrating a clear hierarchy of behaviours which are associated with better cardiovascular health,” says Dr Ashleigh Smith, the deputy director of the Alliance for Research in Exercise, Nutrition and Activity at the University of South Australia.
“You don’t have to make large changes all at once, but instead for sustainable health benefits, making small changes (reducing sitting and increasing MVPA), embedding these changes into every day life, and continuing to make more changes can lead to positive health benefits.”
Leave a comment