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Snacking on Exercise
Could four minutes of exercise really be enough?
We are all busy. We have jobs, families, pets, plants… responsibilities (yuck), and only some of us can properly manage everything and maintain healthy exercise and eating habits too.
We hate those people.
But I think we all want to feel fit, be healthy, and if we could look great naked, too, well, good. So, the growing interest in the “snack on exercise” movement, with a total of…wait for it…only four minutes of exercise a day sounds pretty fantastic. But is it too good to be true?
Of course it is! Four minutes??? I mean, really.
But then I started to investigate. (As I do.)
Where did this ridiculous idea even come from?
High-intensity interval training, or HIIT, has been around for a while. You’ve probably heard of this training method by now, which combines short bouts of all-out, intense exercise interspersed with active rest, like light cycling.
Now, “all-out intensity” is highly relative to the fitness level and perception of the individual; HIIT, to be properly done, must be at levels between I-feel-terrible and oh-dear-I-just-threw-up. It’s been employed by athletes for at least a century, but we’ve only been seriously studying it for about a decade.
Author’s note: While I do feel that HIIT training sounds better than just HIIT, then I’d be saying “high-intensity interval training training”, which I think we can all agree is stupid.
So, while “HIIT” sounds scary, the fun-and-relatable term “snacking on exercise” was originally coined in a 2014 University of Otago study to describe “snacks” of six, one-minute, all-out workout sessions interspersed with active rest or resistance training in groups of insulin-resistant individuals. They found that, compared to 30-minute sessions of moderate-intensity exercise, those in the snack groups showed more effective blood sugar control. This result — and the catchy title — helped the movement towards less-is-more take off. Most studies — but not all — that have looked into this phenomenon are putting their participants through the paces with HIIT.
HIIT, to be properly done…
