Live slow, die young (Image: Renold Zergat/getty)
Sitting is the new smoking. Sedentary lifestyles are being blamed for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even some types of cancer, and the World Health Organization recommends that adults do two and half hours of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of intense exercise each week. Couch potatoes may scoff at this idea, and they are in good company: around half of people in the US, as well as 37 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women in England, fail to do even this modest amount. Often we blame lack of time. Is there an easier way?
鈥淎ny exercise is better than nothing,鈥� says at the University of the West of Scotland in Paisley, UK. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no question that any exercise you do leads to reduced risk factors for mortality.鈥�
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One shortcut is high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. Its devotees claim you can get fit by exercising in short, intense bursts a few times a week, a 鈥済o hard, then go home鈥� approach backed by numerous studies.
Richard Metcalfe, then at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK, and his colleagues did some particularly encouraging research. They found that 10 minutes of leisurely cycling, interspersed with two 20-second sprints, three times a week, boosts cardiovascular fitness as much as more conventional routines. Participants didn鈥檛 judge the workout as particularly arduous either, despite the strenuous sprints.
If even that sounds too much like hard work, some researchers have begun to question whether current exercise guidelines are overzealous. 鈥淚 think you鈥檒l start to see a shift where the message will change to 鈥榙o something鈥�,鈥� Easton says. A recent study from the University of Utah found that sedentary people who took a stroll every hour for just 2 minutes were than those who just stood up for two minutes instead.
It also seems that the first 15 to 20 minutes of exercise bring the biggest benefits. One study of over 400,000 people in Taiwan found that those who did just 15 minutes a day in total 鈥� half the recommended amount 鈥� lived on than those who were inactive (see diagram). The first 20 minutes of exercise are so effective that each session could .
Read more: 鈥�Guilty pleasures: Which bad habits can you get away with?鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淕etting away with inactivity鈥�
