After the age of 40, many of us tend to exercise less. The lack of time, the workload or the multiple leisure distractions within our reach mean that a sedentary lifestyle wins the battle against fait accompli such as the benefits of exercise for health. For all of them, even for those who directly do not like to play sports or go to the gym, a new study brings some interesting conclusions… and practical ones, since it seems that small intervals of intense physical activity during routine daily tasks, Specifically, three or four one-minute bursts of energizing activity can go a long way toward reducing the risk of premature death, particularly from cardiovascular disease.
Published in Nature Medicine, the study led by the Charles Perkins Center at the University of Sydney in Australia is the first to accurately measure the health benefits of what researchers have termed ‘vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity’ or VILPA.
But, what is that VILPA? These are the very brief bouts of vigorous activity (up to a minute or two) that we enjoy doing every day, like running to catch the bus or subway while dodging passengers on the platform, walking briskly to our daily errands, eating go shopping, vacuuming, listening to music with vitality or, simply, playing with your children trying to match their energy level.
VILPA: Vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity
The researchers found that just three to four one-minute sessions of VILPA every day were associated with up to a 40% reduction in all-cause and cancer-related mortality, and up to a 49% reduction in the death related to cardiovascular diseases.
“Our study shows that benefits similar to high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can be achieved by increasing the intensity of incidental activities that are performed as part of daily life, and the more, the merrier,” said lead author Emmanuel Stamatakis, Professor of Physical Activity, Lifestyle and Population Health at the Charles Perkins Center at the University of Sydney.
It requires no time commitment, no preparation, no club memberships, and no special skills. It is simply a matter of picking up your pace while walking or doing household chores with a little more energy.
“A few very short sessions of three to four minutes a day could go a long way, and there are many daily activities that can be adjusted to get your heart rate up for a minute or so.”
Most adults aged 40 and over do not engage in regular exercise or sport, but Professor Stamatakis said the study reveals how incidental physical activity can overcome many barriers. “Increasing the intensity of daily activities requires no time commitment, preparation, club memberships, or special skills. It’s just picking up your pace while walking or doing chores with a little more energy,” he said.
What did you discover about exercise as part of daily life?
In summary, these are the key points that are extracted from this research work:
- About 89% of all participants did some VILPA. Among those who made VILPA:
- 93 percent of all VILPA intervals last up to 1 minute.
- On average, each day the participants performed eight episodes of VILPA of up to 1 minute each, for a total of 6 minutes per day.
- On average, each VILPA burst lasted around 45 seconds.
- The most pronounced gains were seen when comparing those doing around four to five episodes per day to those without VILPA.
- However, greater benefits were found with higher amounts of VILPA, suggesting that more is better.
- The maximum of 11 episodes per day was associated with a 65% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular death and a 49% reduction in the risk of cancer-related death, compared with no VILPA.
Interestingly, a comparative analysis of the vigorous activity of 62,000 people who exercised regularly found comparable results. This implies that if vigorous activity is performed as part of structured exercise or household chores, the health benefits are not compromised.
How was the study carried out?
The researchers used data from wrist trackers from the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database, to measure the activity of more than 25,000 “non-athletes” – participants who reported not playing any sport or exercising for a period of time. free. Using this method, the researchers were able to conclude that any activity recorded by this group was incidental physical activity performed as part of daily life. The team then accessed health data that allowed them to follow the participants for seven years.
The studies are observational, which means they cannot directly establish cause and effect. However, the researchers took rigorous statistical measures to minimize the possibility that the results were due to differences in the health status of the participants.
“These findings demonstrate how valuable detailed, objective measures of physical activity can be when collected in a large-scale population. We are incredibly grateful to all 100,000 UK Biobank participants who wore an activity monitor for 7 days to generate this valuable data,” said Professor Naomi Allen, Chief Scientist at the UK Biobank.
“The ability of wearable technology to reveal “micropatterns” of physical activity, such as VILPA, has great potential for understanding the most feasible and time-efficient ways that people can benefit from physical activity, regardless of whether it is performed for recreational purposes or as part of a physical activity. of daily living.”
Source: University of Sydney
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