Movement is Medicine

Movement is a fundamental aspect of life. Movement is more than just 'exercise'. It impacts everything, from circulation to digestion to metabolism to immunity. It is one of the most important things to implement when it comes to living a long and healthy life.

You may be reading to this going “yea yea, I get between 5-10,000 steps a day. I’m good to go.” But there’s another aspect with movement that we need to consider and that’s our lack of movement aka sedentary time.

Let’s take a quick quiz.

Do you think that your total sedentary time spent has negative impacts on your health if you get in an adequate amount of exercise?

Yes – The amount of exercise you get doesn’t offset the negative impacts total sedentary time has on your health.

No – The negative impact from sedentary time goes down when you get in enough total exercise.

A lot of people think no. And that’s because we assume that if you have a high step count, it’s unlikely you have a low accumulated amount of sedentary time.

And this may be TRUE for some people.

But using a step count goal is a proxy – it’s not a perfect indicator.

The answer is actually YES! – The amount of exercise you get does NOT offset the negative impacts total sedentary time has on your health.

The issue is long stints of sedentary time. So, if you go for a morning hike and hit 10,000 steps for the day and then go home and watch TV or sit on the couch the rest of the day, the negative impacts from that total TV/sitting time are not offset because you went for a morning hike.

There are independent impacts that continuous amounts of sedentary time (aka watching the entire season 4 of Stranger Things in one go) has on our health that are worth being aware of.

There have been studies that show that total sedentary time was associated with high risks of several chronic disease outcomes – despite controlling for physical activity. Meaning that regardless of the subjects’ activities levels being high or low, if they accumulated long stints of sedentary time, they were more likely to deal with health complications. In these studies, we are looking at the independent impact of sedentary time that you can’t offset with activity.

Now I wouldn’t start saying “why bother tracking my step count, or I might as well quite my nightly walks.” It's important to note that within these studies, the negative impacts were more pronounced among people who had low physical activity levels. Therefore, it’s still good to get out, move and do various types of activity.  But there’s still an independent negative impact of excess sedentary time that we want to be aware of.

So, what can we do about this? It can be extremely challenging for people to reduce their sedentary time, depending on their line of work. I get it. When I was working in accounting, there would be 10+hour days in a chair. That’s a long time to be sitting in a position that we weren’t meant to sit in for long periods of time in the first place.

A few strategies come to mind that will be helpful for those needing to reduce their excessive sedentary time.

Monitoring your step count is still a great tool for most people. So put on your fitbit or apple watch and pay attention to that daily step count. Trying to hit around 10,000 steps a day is still a great recommendation for most people to focus on. But paying attention to a step count is not always a feasible option for people – especially if it just stresses you out having one more thing in your day you must track. So, in addition to having a step count goal, what ELSE can you look at doing. 

Two additional strategies include:

1.     Breaking up long periods of sedentary time with non-structured exercise

2.     Breaking up long periods of sedentary time with exercise SNACKS

What does breaking up sedentary time with non-structure exercise look like? Does your 75-minute resistance training session count? I would say, probably not. I think the goal with this strategy needs to be to include some additional activity on top of your resistance training sessions. Focus on planning out activities that aren’t structured exercise per se, but are non-sedentary activities.  Thinks like mowing the lawn, sweeping, walking, doing your nails. Whatever it may be. Pick activities that don’t involve zero movement where you are sitting on the couch watching Netflix for several hours.

If you are struggling with being creative with some different options, look up activities to do and don’t be afraid to try new things.

Google: 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities for several different ideas!

Moving onto the next strategy, which is breaking up long periods of sedentary time with exercise SNACKS. What does this look like?

The use of exercise SNACKS is slowly becoming a popular and effective strategy! Exercise snacks are isolated bouts of vigorous exercise performed for short periods of time but done periodically throughout the day.

For example:

Performing 3-20 seconds intervals of vigorous stairclimbing or perhaps 60 seconds of bodyweight squats every hour or even 3-30 seconds of push-ups 3 times a day.

The idea is to schedule in planned regular breaks throughout the day for short bursts of exercise. This can be a good strategy to do something more purposively besides chores, which is often what comes to mind for people in the previous strategy. It is also helpful for those who don’t have time to go to the gym. Maybe you have a lot going on right now and getting to the gym is just not feasible nor practical. Exercise SNACKS may be a better alternative in the meantime.

I actually used to do this when I had an office job. During tax season it felt next to impossible to get to the gym. Doing tax returns from 7am to 7pm was pretty time consuming and tiring. So, I would take multiple breaks throughout the day and either go for a quick walk around the block or stretch at my desk. I also did some form of movement in the bathroom. Whether it was bodyweight squats, lunges or even jump squats, I tried to just move my body. I didn’t do this because I knew the benefits of reducing sedentary time at the time. It just came naturally – that need to move my body more. It felt right and I always felt better afterwards.

Overall, we want to be mindful of how we are treating our body throughout the day. It’s ok to watch some tv, sit and relax! These aren’t BAD. But the human body wasn’t built to sit in a chair for extended hours in a day. So, find a way to be creative and move around throughout the day.

Hope this was helpful!

Coach Krys