Small Amounts of Exercise Can Have Big Effects

You’re probably aware that people tend to lose muscle as they age, but it may occur sooner than you think and the cumulative effects over time of being sedentary are a major contributor to loss of function with aging.

Without exercise, muscle mass decreases 3 to 8% per year after the age of 30 and this rate of loss accelerates after age 60. Unfortunately, a lot of people, even those who were very active in early adulthood, tend to gradually become more sedentary in their 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, as things like careers, caring for children, etc., take up the time and energy once used for exercise.

Regimented exercise programs do take up significant time – not just the exercise itself, but getting to and from where you exercise if you’re not working out at home and the changing clothes, showering, etc. can easily eat up a couple of hours for a 30 minute workout.

Although recommendations for exercise, such as those from the World Health Organization are typically in the 3 to 5 hours per week of moderate intensity activity, recent research findings indicate that significant health benefits can be had with much less – as little as 5 or 6 minutes per day (although at a relatively high intensity).

Now, you probably won’t get equivalent effects from 5 to 6 minutes a day as you would from 30 minutes or more. Certainly, if you’re trying to lose weight, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular fitness, it’s good to do more than the minimum, but short bursts of relatively intense exercise spread out over the course of your day can be remarkably effective at countering the worst effects of being sedentary. And doing these short bursts is considerably easier to fit into a busy schedule.

As with most things in health care, this short duration, high-intensity form of exercise has a fancy name (because we can’t just call it short, intense bursts of activity!) – VILPA, which stands for Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity.

The basic approach to VILPA is to do 1 to 2 minutes at a time of activity that will increase your heart rate and/or require some muscular effort. Specific activities would include going up and down stairs (at a brisk, but safe pace), walking or running at a quick pace, lifting/carrying heavy items, even doing housework (but at a fast pace). If you have a limited space to work with, activities like running in place or shadow boxing work well.

Whatever activities you choose, try to sustain as high of an intensity as you can for a full 1 to 2 minutes and do 3 to 5 of these short bursts of activity per day. Because these short sessions don’t typically require as much day to day recovery time as longer periods of exercise, you can do them every day, but monitor your body for soreness and/or fatigue (particularly if you’ve been pretty sedentary up until now) and take a day off if you need to.

One potential difficulty with doing multiple brief workouts rather than one more regimented session is simply remembering to do them. People tend to make more traditional exercise sessions part of their planned schedule. VILPA sessions are a lot easier to forget, so unless you happen to have a lifestyle that automatically lends itself to getting up and doing a minute or two of exercise, it’s a good idea to set a timer or a reminder on your phone.

Again, VILPA is not the maximum amount of exercise to shoot for, but it is surprisingly beneficial for improving physical capacity and extending both lifespan and health span (how long you remain healthy and physically capable with aging). It’s also a good entry into exercising for those who have been particularly sedentary and have had difficulty starting a more regimented exercise program.

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.