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Should you beef up your strength training program? – Harvard Health

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Should you beef up your strength training program? – Harvard Health

The recommendation to do strength training twice a week doesn’t mean that you have to pump a lot of iron and become a body builder. Doing body-weight exercises or using small dumbbells or resistance bands does a nice job of keeping muscles strong. But recent evidence suggests that lifting heavier loads might have longer-lasting benefits. The study, published online June 18, 2024, by BMJ Open Sport and Exercise Medicine, involved almost 400 physically active people (average age 71) who were randomly assigned to one of three groups. People in the first group spent a year doing three weekly sessions of heavy machine-based weight lifting; those in the second group did strength training three times a week with resistance bands and body-weight exercises; the others were told to simply keep up their usual activity. After the initial year, participants chose how active to be, and their muscle strength was measured periodically. Four years after the study began, the exercisers who did heavy weight lifting still had strong leg muscles, while people in the other two groups had lost leg strength. The study indicates that intensive strength training is beneficial, even in older age. If you’d like to increase the amount of weight you lift, do it gradually, and consider working with a personal trainer for guidance.


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Exercise ‘Snacks’ Throughout Your Day Have Real Health Benefits, Study Finds

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Exercise ‘Snacks’ Throughout Your Day Have Real Health Benefits, Study Finds

Your fitness tracker might be telling you that you need 10,000 steps, 30 minutes of cardio or even an hour at the gym every day. But what if you could improve your health in just a few minutes a day? A growing body of research suggests you can.

“Exercise snacks” are brief bursts of vigorous exercise, typically lasting one minute or less, scattered throughout your day. Think climbing a few flights of stairs, doing some squats during a work break, or a quick burst of jumping jacks before lunch.

Unlike traditional workouts, these “snacks” aren’t done back-to-back – they’re spread across your waking hours, separated by one to four hours of your regular activities such as working, commuting, or watching TV.

Related: Scientists Identify The Optimal Number of Daily Steps For Longevity, And It’s Not 10,000

The concept differs from high-intensity interval training (Hiit), where you might do multiple intense bursts of activity within a single 20-minute workout. Exercise snacks are more like grazing throughout the day rather than sitting down for a full meal.

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A recent meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that in previously sedentary adults, exercise snacks significantly improved cardiorespiratory fitness, a measure of how well your heart and lungs work during physical activity.

The review concluded that these bite-sized workouts delivered meaningful health benefits, with an impressive 83% of participants sticking to their routines for up to three months.

Why exercise snacking works

Around a third of adults worldwide don’t get enough physical activity. When asked why, the answers are almost always the same: no time and no motivation. Exercise snacks tackle both barriers head-on.

In a 2019 study, sedentary young adults were asked to vigorously climb a three-flight stairwell three times per day – with one to four hours of recovery between bouts. Each session also included a brief warm-up of jumping jacks, squats, and lunges.

After six weeks, the stair climbers showed significant improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness compared to a control group – a key marker linked to longevity and reduced cardiovascular disease risk.

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What’s particularly striking about exercise snacks is their efficiency. While current guidelines recommend 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, exercise snacks can deliver measurable benefits in far less time – sometimes just a few minutes daily.

Related: Microdosing Exercise in Tiny Bursts Works – But There’s 1 Golden Rule

A 2024 randomised controlled trial compared stair-climbing exercise snacks to 40 minutes of moderate-intensity cycling three times weekly. Remarkably, the exercise snacks group – doing three 30-second, all-out stair climbs per session – improved their fitness by 7%, while the cycling group showed no significant change.

The potential benefits extend beyond fitness. A large-scale study of over 25,000 adults who didn’t exercise found that those who accumulated just three to four minutes of vigorous activity daily through activities such as fast walking or climbing stairs had a 40% lower risk of dying from any cause. They also had a nearly 50% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to those who did none.

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There’s evidence that exercise snacks have blood sugar benefits, too. Research has shown that brief, intense exercise snacks performed before meals can reduce post-meal blood sugar spikes in people with insulin resistance (a precursor to type 2 diabetes) – potentially good news for anyone concerned about their metabolic health.

The best exercise snacks

The beauty of exercise snacks is their flexibility. You don’t need special equipment, a gym membership, or to even change your clothes. Here are some practical ways to incorporate them into your day:

Stair climbing is perhaps the most researched exercise snack. If you work in an office building or live in a block of flats, you’ve got free exercise equipment at your disposal.

woman running up stairs
Working in an office building means you’ve got free exercise equipment at your disposal. (Nikada/Getty Images Signature/Canva)

Try climbing vigorously – fast enough that you’re breathing hard by the top – for 20-60 seconds, two to three times throughout your day. Earlier research found that women who progressively increased their stair climbing to five ascents daily saw a 17% improvement in fitness after just eight weeks.

Walking bursts count too, provided they’re vigorous. Try doing a brisk one-minute walk around the office or a quick lap of your garden a few times a day. But in order to see benefits, you’ve got to make sure the pace is quick enough that holding a conversation becomes difficult.

Related: A Few Minutes of Exercise Today Could Do Wonders For Your Brain Tomorrow

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Bodyweight exercises such as squats, lunges or wall push-ups can be done almost anywhere. Try a set of ten squats every time you make a cup of tea or some wall push-ups before lunch. The key is intensity – you should feel your heart rate rise and be slightly out of breath.

Consistency matters more than perfection when it comes to exercise snacks. The research shows that even very brief sessions – as short as 20 seconds – can contribute to fitness improvements so long as they’re repeated regularly.

The trick is building these snacks into existing habits. Climb stairs before your morning coffee. Do squats during TV adverts. Take a brisk walk after finishing a work call.

Exercise snacks won’t replace the full range of benefits you’d get from a comprehensive fitness programme. But for the millions of us who struggle to find time for traditional workouts, they offer a practical entry point – one backed by increasingly robust science.

The biggest gains in health happen when someone goes from doing nothing to doing something. So next time you’re waiting for the kettle to boil or have a few minutes between meetings, consider having an exercise snack. Your heart will thank you.The Conversation

Jack McNamara, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Exercise Physiology, University of East London

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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This budget fitness tracker is an excellent Fitbit alternative

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This budget fitness tracker is an excellent Fitbit alternative

Why you can trust Live Science


Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best ones for you. Find out more about how we test.

Choosing from the best fitness trackers available can feel overwhelming at times — how can you differentiate them? How do you know if they have all the features you’re looking for? This is why we spend weeks testing fitness trackers, to help gather the information you need to make an informed decision.

When it comes to the Motorola Moto Watch Fit, there was a lot to like and only a few things that turned us off. However, when you consider the price of this fitness tracker, there isn’t much to grumble about. We loved the amount of yoga types you could select from, the personalized workout screen that took minutes, if not seconds, to sort, the Velcro-adjustable strap, the battery life, the sleep tracking and the durability of the Gorilla Glass screen.

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Hate exercise? Fitness expert Annie Deadman shares 3 moves to do when you have no time

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Hate exercise? Fitness expert Annie Deadman shares 3 moves to do when you have no time

Hello you lovely lot. Right, I have 500 words and I’m not going to use them for persuasion or coercion, because that doesn’t work. I want to explain what the point of exercise is. All facts, no emotion. Then you can make up your own mind.

The first fact is that many people view exercise purely as a means to lose weight. So that 45 minutes of exertion three to four times a week becomes only about burning calories.

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