Tuning In to the Frequency of Exercise

When prescribing exercises for treating a particular injury or condition, I’ve found that it’s often more effective to do a little bit of a given exercise multiple times per day than to do one or two longer sessions., at least during the initial acute phase of symptoms. This has a couple of advantages.

First, assuming the exercise helps relieve pain and other symptoms, it provides a means of treatment without the potential disadvantages of medication. But it’s often also a more effective way to “re-train” injured tissues as well as to counter the negative effects of other injurious daily activities that may not always be avoidable.

Recent studies are indicating that this “high-frequency” approach may also have advantages in terms of general health and fitness.

For instance, one study found that doing ten body-weight squats every 45 minutes during the course of an eight hour work day provided better blood sugar control than a 30 minute walk. Most people who can do squats can usually do ten in less than 30 seconds, so if you do that every 45 minutes for eight hours, that comes to about 5 minutes of total exercise having a better effect on blood sugar control than the 30 minutes of walking done all at once!

Another study found that short (two to six minute) bursts of relatively intense activity (such as going up and down stairs at a quick pace) , sometimes called “Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Activity,” (VILA) can reduce all-cause mortality by as much as 40% and cardiovascular-related mortality by as much as 50%!

You may have heard it said that “sitting is the new smoking.” Well, while sitting is not really as harmful as smoking, prolonged sitting multiple hours a day has been found to be a risk factor for numerous health issues and it may even negate some of the benefits of regular exercise in relatively fit individuals.

When I hear the word “sedentary,” I typically think of someone who is mostly inactive and doesn’t exercise at all. But a lot of people who exercise regularly are sedentary a lot of the time – sitting at desks, driving in traffic, etc. And when you think about it, even a lot of so-called “gym rats” spend a lot more time sitting around than they do working out, and that sitting around is bad for pretty much everyone.

A simple way to combat the negative health effects of sitting and inactivity is to do brief bouts of exercise – even just 30 seconds to a minute of moderate intensity activity done every 30 minutes to an hour can go a long way in being healthier and feeling better. The activity could be the previously mentioned squats or stair-climbing, push-ups, abdominal crunches, high-step marching in place, shadow-boxing, or even just a fast-paced walk around your home or place of work. Anything that gets your body moving and your blood pumping a bit faster.

If you want to use some sort of exercise equipment that you have readily available, great! But you can do this without any equipment at all, and some things can be done wearing just about any type of clothing – and without too much risk of getting sweaty. At just 30 seconds to a minute for each round of activity, it won’t take much time out of an already busy schedule, and it can help keep you energized and attentive for whatever work you need to get done.

While this approach is relatively simple and easy to do for most people, a major stumbling block is remembering to do it. Setting a timer or having some other reminder system (there’s various apps for phones, computers, etc.) and being committed to taking the quick breaks are crucial to making this really work. Forgetting to take the breaks and/or procrastinating on them will typically result in your good intentions falling by the wayside and soon discontinuing your exercise “snacks” altogether.

It doesn’t take a lot of time or physical effort to make this work for you, but there is going to be some effort involved in establishing the habit to get maximum benefits.

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.