As an increasing number of scientific studies are published citing the benefits of ‘exercise snacking’ – short bouts of physical activity sprinkled throughout the day – one celeb has sworn by the practise for several years already. The woman in question? Acting great Michelle Yeoh. Below, we look at the power of mini workouts and why the Oscar-winner’s go-to move is so effective.

Stretching

Michelle revealed to Vogue that she incorporates fitness into her morning routine in a way that’s incredibly time-efficient. ‘Remember, you can do your kicks, you can do your stretches, while you are also waking up,’ she said. Indeed, research has shown that regular stretching can improve flexibility, reduce muscle stiffness and improve blood circulation – all crucial elements of healthy ageing.

And you don’t have to stretch for very long, either. One study found that while static stretching improves flexibility in adults, there was no additional benefit observed beyond four minutes per session or 10 minutes per week. So, it seems that a short stretching sesh (you don’t even have to get out of bed to do it) like Michelle’s is a very worthwhile habit to adopt.

Squats

In her Vogue interview, Michelle also shared that she performs squats most days while doing her skincare routine. Virtually every expert and trainer we speak to here at Women’s Health lists squats as one of the most important moves for women to do as they age. A compound exercise (when multiple muscle groups are used), squats also mirror the vital movement pattern of sitting down and getting back up again.

Numerous studies have highlighted the benefits of this simple exercise for posture, strength and power, and one paper even found that intermittent squat exercises performed during prolonged periods of sitting may boost brain power. Whether you’re squatting mid-moisturise like Michelle or while you’re waiting for the kettle to boil, the science suggests sprinkling squats into your day can be really quite powerful.

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The power of habit stacking

As Michelle’s routine shows, adopting a sustainable exercise routine often relies on habit stacking – adding a movement to something you already do every day, like doing your skincare or brushing your teeth.

BRB, we’re just off to do our daily squats.

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After years living with endometriosis and undergoing seven rounds of IVF, Radio 4 presenter Emma Barnett turned to training with PT Frankie Holah to rebuild strength and a more positive relationship with her body. Download the Women’s Health UK app to access Frankie’s full training plan.

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Hannah Bradfield is a Senior Health and Fitness Writer for Women’s Health UK. An NCTJ-accredited journalist, Hannah graduated from Loughborough University with a BA in English and Sport Science and an MA in Media and Cultural Analysis.  She has been covering sports, health and fitness for the last five years and has created content for outlets including BBC Sport, BBC Sounds, Runner’s World and Stylist. She especially enjoys interviewing those working within the community to improve access to sport, exercise and wellness. Hannah is a 2024 John Schofield Trust Fellow and was also named a 2022 Rising Star in Journalism by The Printing Charity.  A keen runner, Hannah was firmly a sprinter growing up (also dabbling in long jump) but has since transitioned to longer-distance running. While 10K is her favoured race distance, she loves running or volunteering at parkrun every Saturday, followed, of course, by pastries. She’s always looking for fun new runs and races to do and brunch spots to try.

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Strength training doesn’t have to be complicated. Fitness content on social media may leave you thinking that you should only work out at specific times, use certain weights and incorporate an ever-rotating assortment of moves — but to reap the full benefits of building muscle, you can actually keep things surprisingly simple.

The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends at least two days of resistance training, aka strength training, for adults each week as part of their workout routines. And those two days need only include six moves, Adrian Chavez, Ph.D., nutrition and health coach, tells TODAY.com.

It’s often the most advanced fitness routines that generate the most buzz online. And while having lots of different strength moves in your arsenal can stave off boredom at the gym, it’s not usually necessary, Chavez explains. Sticking to the basics and staying consistent will give you the most bang for your buck, he adds.

The Most Efficient Strength-Training Moves

The six moves Chavez says are most efficient for improving health and body composition are:

“Those movements cover all of the (major) muscle groups of the body,” Chavez says. “I wouldn’t necessarily say these are the only six movements that you need, but those are the ones that are going to work the largest amount of muscle in each movement.”

Building muscle through strength training can boost longevity, a mood, bone density and more.

It’s also a key factor to improving metabolic health, Chavez points out. Muscle burns calories, even while you’re at rest. So, the more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn.

If you’re after efficient results, focusing on these six movements that target the body’s largest muscle groups will get you there since these muscles require the most energy to function.

Which Muscles Does Each Move Target?

The overhead press primarily targets the shoulders, says Chavez. It also works the triceps, the trapezius muscles in your upper back and the core.

Perform a chest press when you’re looking to strengthen your pectoralis muscles, the two largest in the chest. These muscles are responsible for lifting, rotating and pushing.

By including a back row in your strength training routine, you’ll be working your upper back and biceps, says Chavez.

The overhead pull-down or pull-up will strengthen your latissimus dorsi muscles (lats), which extend from the lower back to the armpit. Chavez says you’ll be engaging your biceps, too.

Squats work the quadricep muscles (quads) in the thighs, hamstrings and glutes, says Chavez. They’ll also engage your core, since squats require stability.

Include deadlifts in your routine to challenge your quad muscles in the thigh, hamstrings, glutes and lower back, says Chavez. You can choose between the regular deadlift and the Romanian deadlift, or incorporate both into your workout.

Benefits of a Consistent Strength Training Routine

Studies show that consistency when strength training, rather than the complexity of your workout plan, is what makes the biggest difference for health. Any kind of resistance training compared to none at all improve sstrength, muscle function and endurance regardless of intensity, equipment type and variation, research shows.

These six moves are not the only effective workouts for improving strength and altering body composition, but if you were to stick only to these six, you’d be in great shape, he explains.

Regular strength training will not only improve your physique but also your quality of life. “When you do a deadlift, that’s like picking up your kid,” Chavez says, comparing pull-ups to playing with them on the monkey bars.

“Carrying groceries, moving furniture, all of those things become a lot easier when you build some strength. And … these six movements cover all of the major muscle groups, so that will translate into really changing the way that you experience life,” he adds.

How to Add Variation

Once you’ve committed to a training plan you’ll use again and again, you may also want to mix things up, Chavez says.

To avoid boredom or to add an additional challenge, most of the six moves have variations.

For example, narrow-stance squats isolate the quads. Or you can change the grip during bicep curls to also target the forearms. “Learning slight variations to these primary movements is how you really build out a good routine,” he says.

An ideal workout program includes strength training at least two times a week and additional sessions with a type of cardio you enjoy. Chavez plays basketball, runs and rides his bike in between strength training sessions. He also suggests walking, swimming or rowing.

Is exercise obsolete in the age of Ozempic? Now that the initial hype has settled down, nobody makes that claim with a straight face. In fact, one of the big fears among people taking GLP-1 agonists (the class of drug to which Ozempic belongs) is that they’ll lose too much muscle along with all the fat, leaving them weaker and less healthy. But at this point, there’s very little data on what happens when you combine these drugs with an exercise routine (or lack thereof).

A newly published study in the journal Sports Medicine steps into this gap. It’s a secondary analysis of data from a previously published study by researchers at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, funded in part by the Novo Nordisk Foundation (Novo Nordisk is the company that makes Ozempic). The study follows volunteers taking another Novo Nordisk GLP-1 agonist called liraglutide (sold under the brand names Victoza and Saxenda) for an entire year, with or without the addition of a regular exercise program. The results show that without exercise, both health and physical function suffer—and it’s not just about muscle.

What the GLP-1 Study Found

The study involved 193 adults between the ages of 18 and 65. It’s a little unusual in that they started by following an eight-week very-low-calorie diet before starting either exercise or the GLP-1 drug. That’s because the original study was designed to look at ways of maintaining weight loss. Everyone included in the study lost at least 5 percent of their starting weight, which resulted in an average weight loss of 29 pounds. Then, for the following year, they either exercised, took the GLP-1 drug, did both, or did neither. (Those who didn’t get the drug got a placebo.)

The exercise program involved two group exercise classes per week, including 30 minutes of intervals on an exercise bike, then 15 minutes of circuit training (step-ups, boxing, squats, kettlebells, and so on). The subjects were also asked to do two additional workouts on their own; the details were up to them, but most chose running, cycling, brisk walking, or circuits. Adherence was decent: they averaged 2.65 workouts a week and met standard public health guidelines for physical activity.

The first outcome of interest (as reported in the original analysis) is weight. Here’s the trajectory of the four groups:

Doing nothing was the worst option. Exercising and taking a GLP-1 drug was the best option. If you had to choose one or the other, the drug looks marginally better, though the difference wasn’t statistically significant.

Does Fitness or Fatness Matter More?

There’s a longstanding debate about the relative health effects of being overweight versus being aerobically unfit. The two often go together, so they get conflated—but they’re not the same thing. The general trend of evidence, according to the Danish research team, is that it’s better for health and longevity to be fit and overweight than unfit and normal weight. This distinction is important in the context of GLP-1 drugs, because if they help you lose weight without gaining fitness, then the health benefits may be less than you’d expect.

Figuring out how to measure fitness in this context isn’t straightforward. When you lose weight, you’ll generally lose some muscle mass in addition to fat loss. Both strength and aerobic fitness (as measured by VO2 max) are roughly proportional to muscle mass, so your absolute fitness might appear to decline when you lose a lot of weight. But if you lose less strength or fitness in proportion to your overall weight loss, you’ll still end up with greater functional fitness: you’ll have an easier time getting up from a chair, be able to walk for longer, and so on.

One of the simple functional tests the Danish study included was a stair-climb test: climb up and down an 11-step stairway twice, as fast as possible. Here’s what those results looked like:

It’s clear here that the exercise program helped people speed up and down the stairs more quickly, whether or not they were taking the GLP-1 drug. Just taking the drug without exercising didn’t have any benefit.

There are a whole bunch of other fitness measures in the paper: VO2 max tests, leg strength tests, body composition tests to measure muscle mass in the arms and legs. The fitness outcomes can be expressed in absolute terms, or relative to total body weight, or relative to muscle mass. No matter how you express it, the overall pattern, with a few minor exceptions, is the same as the graph above: exercise makes you fitter, simply taking the drug doesn’t.

(An example of a minor exception: the drug alone was enough to improve relative leg strength, i.e. leg strength divided by total body weight, because weight decreased more than strength. But adding exercise worked even better.)

This conclusion—that the best way to get fitter is to exercise—is not exactly surprising. But I think it has been overlooked in discussions about GLP-1 drugs. I’ve certainly seen lots of chatter about the dangers of muscle loss with Ozempic, and the need to pound protein and lift weights. That’s a legitimate concern, but aerobic fitness is an even better predictor of longevity and marker of general health. GLP-1 drugs have remarkable properties, but they haven’t made exercise obsolete.

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