Short bursts of everyday activity help us stay healthy

SYDNEY－How do you get maximum health benefits without going to the gym? Short bursts of physical activity, like climbing the stairs or washing the car, could be the key to helping many of us stay healthy, according to an international study released last month.

What the study refers to as High Intensity Incidental Physical Activity mimics the scientifically proven benefits of High Intensity Interval Training by incorporating it into everyday life and tasks.

"There is a lot of research telling us that any type of HIIT, irrespective of its duration and number of repetitions, is one of the most effective ways to rapidly improve fitness and cardiovascular health, and HIIPA works on the same idea," says Emmanuel Stamatakis, one of the study's collaborators from Sydney University.

Along with his colleagues, Stamatakis argues that when taking into account different physical characteristics－such as age, gender and weight－many of the daily tasks we perform can be classed as "high intensity".

For the typical middle-aged Australian women, 60 percent of whom are overweight, activities like running and playing with children or walking uphill, all expend more than six times as much energy per minute than when at rest－the standard measure for high intensity activity.

Over the course of the day, doing three to five brief HIIPA sessions totaling five to 10 minutes could have significant health benefits and offer a more realistic health regime for people to stick to, according to the team.

"The beauty of HIIPA and the idea of using activities we are already doing as part of everyday life is that it is much more realistic and achievable for most people," Stamatakis says.

"The time commitment for HIIPA is close to zero minutes per day, and people could save even more time if their HIIPA involves brief sprints when they're out walking, or taking the stairs instead of waiting for the lift.

"There are other practical advantages, such as there are no associated costs, there's no need for equipment and no need to worry about a lack of skill or fitness," he says.