When it comes to exercise, the best advice may be to work harder, not longer. Research published this past weekend highlights the unique benefits of vigorous exercise.
Scientists tracked the long-term health of residents in England. People who spent more time during the week doing vigorous physical activity were significantly less likely to develop eight different chronic diseases and die earlier, the researchers found, even when people’s total activity was accounted for. They argue that regularly performing short bursts of vigorous exercise, such as walking after the bus, can have a major impact on people’s longevity.
“These findings support, whenever possible, prioritizing high-intensity activities in clinical and public health interventions aimed at preventing non-communicable diseases,” they wrote in their paper, published on Sunday in the European Heart Journal.
Why type of exercise is important
Scientists already know that vigorous exercise, generally defined as any activity that takes you out of breath while doing it, provides more health benefits per minute than light exercise. But according to the researchers, there is still some uncertainty about how these benefits stack up in different health conditions, as well as the relative importance of how often and how intensely one exercises.
To that end, the team examined data from the UK Biobank, a long-running project tracking the health of middle-aged residents in the country. Biobank volunteers are also asked to wear accelerometers on their wrists for a week, allowing researchers to objectively measure people’s physical activity baseline. In all, they studied more than 300,000 people who reported their usual physical activity in one week, with nearly 100,000 people who tracked their activity.
Compared to people who reported no or no vigorous activity, people who spent at least 4% or more of their time doing something vigorous per week were less likely to develop these conditions during the seven-year follow-up period: heart disease, liver disease, chronic kidney disease, chronic respiratory disease, immune-related inflammatory diseases, types of inflammation of the heart, vascular disease, heart disease. Dementia
The largest relative benefits were seen for dementia (63% lower) and diabetes (60% lower), while more vigorous exercisers were also 46% less likely to die during the study period. And exercise intensity was associated with a lower risk of inflammatory disease, heart disease, irregular heartbeat, and dementia more than exercise duration. These findings suggest that vigorous exercise may specifically help reduce the harmful inflammation that contributes to these and other health problems.
Importantly, these patterns hold even when looking at people who do roughly the same amount of physical activity per week but at different intensity levels, and even when people only do a small amount of vigorous exercise.
“Intensity has consistently shown a higher deterrent capacity than aggregate [physical activity] volume,” the researchers wrote.
What should this mean for your daily work?
Researchers acknowledge that there are people who simply cannot change their physical activity levels for any number of reasons, such as old age or pre-existing health conditions. And at the end of the day, any amount of regular exercise is still better than none.
But for those who are willing and able to make the most of their day, Intensity may be the life hack they’ve been looking for. And it doesn’t necessarily take long to do so, researchers say.
Study author Minxu Shen, a professor of public health at Central South University in Hunan, China, said in a statement released by the European Society of Cardiology: “It doesn’t have to be going to the gym. Adding short activities that keep you out of breath to your daily routine, such as climbing stairs, walking briskly between errands or playing actively with children, can make a real difference.” “Even 15 to 20 minutes of such effort per week—just a few minutes a day—is associated with significant health benefits.”
Personally, this study will encourage me to push at least a little harder during my jogs.
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