Can Short Bursts of Exercise Lead to a Longer Life?
The more steps you take each day, whether they are in short spurts or all at once, may lead to a longer life, a new study suggests. While walking in bouts of 10 minutes or more appear to have the most impact on life expectancy, shorter strolls, if there are a lot of them, can also contribute, researchers reported Thursday at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle and Cardiovascular Health Conference.
“This is just one study, but it suggests that there is a lot of flexibility in the way people can accumulate physical activity throughout the day,” the study’s lead author, Chris Moore, told Today.
“A lot of people think you need to go to the gym and have long bouts of continuous exercise, but you can be active without going to the gym,” said Moore, a PhD student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “And that’s more feasible for a lot more people, especially those like the participants in this study who were older women. Older adults have a lot of barriers to doing more structured exercise.”
Excerpted from Today
