Embarking on a New Year, we all plan and hope to find the time to meet the Physical Activity Guidelines from the States Department of Health and Human Services. To help with that, we provided tips last week for smarter exercise and how to burn the most calories during your workout. But sometimes it is still hard to get in all of our exercise.

So what about all of the incidental physical activity throughout the day? Things like:

• Parking your car further away
• Taking the stairs instead of an escalator
• Carrying a hand basket instead of using a cart at the store
• Using a shared printer further away from your office at work
• Cleaning or vacuuming your house
• Going inside versus using the drive thru at businesses

We commonly hear some of these simple suggestions to increase incidental activity throughout the day. I was even contacted recently by the Dallas Morning News when they had an article on steps to better health and a healthier environment in which they suggested changing the way you travel to work that included a few of these types of suggestions.

Recently a study evaluated these types of activities with accelerometers (a device that measures movement through acceleration).¹ The study of 135 inactive overweight and obese participants found that their incidental sporadic activities or movement throughout the day did not equate to enough activity to meet the physical activity guidelines for health benefits. But those who participated in more overall activity throughout their day did have higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels compared to those with less activity. In the study, the strongest predictor of those with higher cardiorespiratory levels was intensity versus duration of activities performed. Thus, if thinking about two choices for parking your car further away, be sure to pick the one that will require you to walk uphill versus just a longer distance.

While those participants engaging in more sporadic activities had higher cardiorespiratory levels than those doing less activity, these levels were still at the very low end. Individuals participating in levels of activity that meet the physical activity guidelines would likely have much higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness. Still, among these mostly inactive overweight and obese individuals, the separation between those engaging in more activity, while only sporadic, provided protective value. Those who did 10 additional minutes per day of moderately intense activities than the least active group (which only did approximately 7 minutes) “may be associated with a decreased risk of 6.5% for all cause mortality and 7.5% for cardiovascular disease.” Those who accumulated 30 minutes of moderate activities compared to the group who only did approximately 7 minutes “may be associated with a risk reduction of 13% in all cause mortality and 15% in cardiovascular disease.”

Significant health concerns do still exist for the participants of this study due to obesity compared to non-obese individuals. “Nevertheless, previous research has demonstrated that in individuals with obesity, those who have higher cardiorespiratory fitness are at a substantially decreased risk of morbidity and mortality than those with low cardiorespiratory fitness.”²

The Bottom Line
All activity is beneficial. But as seen in this study, intensity is one of the most important factors. Many of the incidental activities we commonly think about of parking the car further away elicit low intensity levels. While they do provide benefit, more health benefits may be achieved by working towards the physical activity guidelines for health benefits.

But doing something still remains better than doing nothing and continues to offer at least some protective value.

Share with us other ways that you have found to incorporate physical activity into your day.

¹Ross, R., McGuire, K.A. Incidental Physical Activity is Positively Associated with Cardiorespiratory Fitness. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., vol. 43, No. 11, pp. 2189-2194, 2011.
²Farrell, S.W., Braun, L., Barlow C.E., Cheng Y.J., Blair S.N. The relation of body mass index, cardiorespiratory fitness, and all-cause mortality in women. Obes Res., 10(6):417-23, 2002.