Daily ‘exercise snacks’ could improve your heart and lung health – here’s how

We all know that exercise is good for us, but you don’t have to spend hours pumping iron or training for a marathon to reap the many health benefits, which is great news for the busy among us. Whether it’s full-on work weeks, busy social plans or taking care of kids, it can be hard to find the time to fit in an hour-long gym session.

That’s where ‘exercise snacking’ comes in. Not the act of stopping mid-workout for a cereal bar, but rather separating exercise into smaller chunks spread throughout the day, exercise snacking is all about breaking your movement into small bursts.

“That might be stepping away from your desk for five or 10 minutes and working on something small,” explains strength and conditioning coach and exercise snacking advocate Pennie Varvarides.

And studies say that two five-minute exercise snacks a day could have a whole host of health benefits.

A new study, which was published in the British Journal Of Sports Medicine this week, analyses data from 11 existing studies on the benefits of short sharp bursts of exercise such as stair climbing, strength-based workouts and tai chi.

None of the 414 participants would regularly take part in exercise at the beginning of the study and were given exercise programmes to complete that included these five-minute workouts.

Researchers found that 83% of the participants stuck to the exercise snack workouts by the end of the study, which was 20% more than those who were given HIIT workouts. Health benefits from just two five-minute exercises a day were significant, including improvements in heart and lung fitness and improved cholesterol levels.

And this isn’t the only research that documents the benefits of exercise snacking. A study by the University of Bath, showed that exercise snacking can boost fitness levels too. It found that four weeks of exercise snacking increased the number of sit-to-stand repetitions participants could complete in 60 seconds by 30%, leg strength and power increased by 5% and 6% respectively, and thigh muscle size increased by 2%.

“If you don’t have an hour to spare or you just don’t want to spend that long exercising, then doing a small amount of something is quite beneficial and almost always better than doing nothing,” says Varvarides. “It might even allow some people to get a better quality of work done. Instead of faffing around for a bit, people can focus on moving really well for just five minutes or 10 minutes.”

You can snack on any exercise, but logistically, some things work better than others. For example, you won’t be lifting heavy weights in short bursts throughout the day, as by the time you’ve warmed up and racked up the bar, snack time is over. Equally, you might want to assess whether cardio training works for you – how comfortable will you be going back to your daily tasks after getting a bit sweaty from a five-minute skipping session? 

“I often talk about mobility snacks or a short skill block because those tend to be the things that are easiest to fit in if you have five or 10 minutes,” Varvarides says. “You could also work on bodyweight strength moves, like push-ups or pull-ups, or you could work on moves as a circuit.” 

It’s also important to note that it might benefit those who don’t do regular exercise, more than it would the regular gym goer. “If you’re super busy, eg managing exercise around working full time and raising children or running a business, you might not be able to fit a whole hour in all of the time. Snacking is also beneficial if you suffer from chronic fatigue and getting through an hour is often impossible,” they add.

However, if you are someone who usually trains multiple times a week, then you will notice that exercise snacking won’t give you the same strength and endurance benefits you’d get from your usual sessions. “Don’t swap all of your training because you will never have enough time to strength train, which is important,” says Varvarides. “But if there’s one day a week or a period of time when you can’t move how you’d like, then this is a great option. Snacking isn’t a replacement for most; it’s a way of getting a bit more moving in when you don’t have time or when you can’t be bothered.” 

Inspired? Try some of these exercise snacking workouts

Mobility work: spend five minutes working through the major joints in your body, such as the shoulders, hips and ankles.

Strength-focused training: five sets of press-ups until failure, with one minute rest between sets.

A cardio circuit: complete 10 press-ups, 10 lunges and 10 burpees as many times as possible in 10 minutes.

A skill-building snack: practise something such as L-sits, Turkish get-ups or crow pose for five minutes. 

Images: Getty