For many professionals, finding an hour for the gym is about as feasible as finding an extra day in the week. There are deadlines, family obligations, late-night calls and the small matter of getting enough sleep.
That is why “exercise snacks” – or micro-workouts – have become so appealing. Rather than reserving exercise for a long session, the approach breaks activity into short bouts: a brisk climb up stairs, a few squats between meetings or an interval session squeezed into a lunch break.
The evidence suggests that these doses are not meaningless. But they are not a reason to abandon longer exercise either.
A recent meta-analysis of 27 trials found that short, intensive bouts of exercise improved cardiorespiratory fitness and decreased fasting blood glucose and cholesterol levels, body fat percentage, waist circumference and blood pressure, compared with doing no exercise.