Can You 'Microdose' Exercise, What It Means
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), adults should aim each week for either a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise.
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A 2019 study investigating young adults explored the impact of brief "exercise snacks" on overall fitness levels.
Adelaide:
The term "microdosing" originally referred to consuming small amounts of psychedelic substances (like mushrooms) to enhance mood or performance while minimizing side effects.
Now, this concept has expanded to encompass taking significantly reduced "doses" of virtually anything while still gaining the benefits.
But does this principle apply to exercise? If finding 30 minutes for a run seems impossible, can shorter activity bursts provide meaningful health benefits?
Let's examine what research tells us.
Minimum recommended physical activityThe World Health Organization (WHO) advises adults to aim for either 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity weekly – where conversation becomes difficult – or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise – leaving you breathless. Alternatively, you can combine both intensity levels.
Activities may include brisk walking, cycling, running, swimming, rowing, and team sports like football and basketball.
Daily exercise would require 20-30 minutes of such activities. Alternatively, you might participate in longer training sessions or matches two to three times weekly.
WHO guidelines also suggest incorporating muscle-strengthening activities (such as weightlifting or high-impact exercises like sprinting) at least twice weekly.
What qualifies as exercise?Incidental movement – unplanned or everyday activities like playing with children or walking to public transportation – can contribute to your weekly physical activity total.
Indeed, household chores count too. Activities such as mopping and vacuuming typically demand similar physical effort as walking.
While these activities aren't considered vigorous, they can contribute toward your moderate-intensity exercise minutes.
Are shorter exercise segments effective?Yes, encouragingly, multiple short exercise sessions throughout the day prove as beneficial as one extended session.
In fact, this approach might offer additional advantages.
A 2019 review analyzing 19 studies with over 1,000 participants addressed this question. It discovered that multiple shorter exercise "chunks" throughout the day improved cardiovascular fitness and blood pressure comparably to single longer sessions.
Some evidence even suggested these shorter segments led to greater weight reduction and lower cholesterol levels.
The most common comparison method in these studies involved one group performing three ten-minute exercise bouts five days weekly, while another completed one 30-minute session five days weekly.
Even very brief exercise may benefitAnother 2019 study examining young adults investigated how short exercise "snacks" affected fitness. Though small-scale, it produced interesting positive outcomes.
The exercise "snack" group completed three very brief sessions daily, three days weekly, for six weeks. Each session included a light two-minute warm-up, followed by a 20-second all-out sprint effort, and a one-minute cool-down.
In total: just three minutes and 20 seconds of activity, three times daily, three days weekly.
The control group performed one session daily, three days weekly, but for longer – totaling ten minutes. This involved a two-minute warm-up, three 20-second sprints with three-minute light recovery periods between sprints, and a one-minute cool-down.
The "snack" group demonstrated significant aerobic fitness improvements, one of the strongest predictors of reduced early mortality risk and overall health.
Similar studies suggest this approach can positively affect cholesterol reduction. However, it may provide insufficient total exercise duration for weight loss.
Shorter but more intense?The research above indicates that shorter exercise sessions require greater intensity.
You might need to modify your exercise to increase intensity. For instance, one minute of maximum-intensity exercise might equal two minutes of moderate-intensity activity.
Essentially, when time-constrained, you'll achieve more benefit by increasing intensity.
Is there still value in longer workouts?For health and general fitness, research suggests no disadvantages to breaking longer workouts into smaller segments.
However, reasons remain for maintaining some longer sessions.
If training for extended events (perhaps a 10-kilometer run, 30-kilometer ride, or marathon), longer sessions become necessary. These ensure your muscles and joints can withstand the event's demands and help your body optimize performance.
For mental health, evidence suggests exceeding the minimum recommended exercise amount might prove more beneficial.
For example, two recent meta-analyses (reviews of available evidence) found approximately one hour of moderate-intensity exercise daily significantly improves anxiety and depression symptoms.
However, these studies didn't compare single sessions versus segmented exercise, suggesting divided daily exercise likely produces similar effects.
ConclusionAny exercise surpasses none. If time-constrained, as little as three minutes daily, spread across three sessions, can positively impact health.
Remember though – shorter sessions demand higher intensity.
Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.