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What are exercise snacks?

This is an excerpt from Obesity and Weight Management by Alexios Batrakoulis.

By Alexios Batrakoulis and Anoop Balachandran

Exercise Snacks

According to the World Health Organization and its current guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behavior, every step counts; therefore, any amount of physical movement daily has value compared to inactivity (Bull et al. 2020; Piercy et al. 2018). Thus, it is critically important for people with excess weight to understand the real value of any kind of physical activity. In 2007, Dr. Howard Hartley coined the term exercise snacks, which he defined as brief periods of vigorous-intensity bodily movement or exercise that typically last for no more than 2 minutes (Hartley 2007). This is a quick and easy way to get moving without requiring equipment or going to a gym and is something that your clients can and should do in their daily life.

In 2014, the first peer-reviewed study investigating the effect of short, intermittent bouts of vigorous walking on glucose metabolism among people with prediabetes was published (Francois et al. 2014). In particular, movement or exercise snacks appear to be a vital approach for cardiometabolic health improvements, even without weight loss (Islam et al. 2022). Also, such short activity breaks appear to be effective for enhancing various well-being indicators, such as vigor and fatigue, as well as cognitive function, especially when the exercise break is more extended (Albulescu et al. 2022). Evidence regarding benefits of short bouts of physical activity is valuable because such microbreaks can help previously inactive clients with excess weight break up their sedentary behavior and engage in regular bodily movement through small daily doses at a self-determined pace and intensity (Moore et al. 2022).

Benefits of Exercise Snacks

Incorporating short bouts of movement throughout the day is a critical strategy commonly ignored by clients with excess weight and by exercise professionals when designing personalized exercise programs and behavior-change strategies. Considering that individuals with overweight or obesity likely have insufficient physical activity levels (Gray et al. 2018), movement or exercise snacks could be a clever and efficient concept for increasing physical activity levels in an efficient, user-friendly way. This is important because adults with overweight or obesity tend to have low adherence and high dropout rates when engaging in traditional cardiorespiratory fitness activities (Burgess et al. 2017). One of the biggest mistakes exercise professionals make when designing training programs for clients with excess weight is an exclusive focus on weight loss, which is a long-term goal, without considering the process. In other words, many exercise professionals emphasize the destination without paying attention to the journey to get there.

Taking this into account, exercise professionals should find ways to regularly engage clients who have excess weight in physical movement anywhere they spend time throughout the day, not only in a structured exercise program in a gym setting. Considering that only one in five of those who try to lose weight succeed in maintaining a 10% loss for at least a year (Wing and Phelan 2005), it is clear that the primary goal is not rapid weight loss. Instead, gradual weight loss and long-term weight loss maintenance seem to be the optimal goals for these clients since weight regain is common after losing weight, especially for individuals with low physical activity levels, regardless of their current body weight (Wing and Phelan 2005). Hence, increased physical activity appears to be a key factor in successful long-term weight loss (Soini et al. 2015). However, emerging evidence shows that although exercise snacks can improve cardiorespiratory fitness, they do not improve maximum fat oxidation in healthy, young, inactive adults with healthy body weight (Yin et al. 2024). This observation may indicate an adjunct role of exercise snacking in weight loss while underlining the need for further research in this area, with a focus on people with overweight or obesity.

When to Use Exercise Snacks

Emerging research shows that exercise snacks with greater intensity but that are still well-tolerated provide better results concerning cardiorespiratory fitness and neuromuscular performance in inactive adults. In general, this strategy involves 15 to 30 seconds of vigorous activity (rating of perceived exertion of 6-7 classified as a somewhat hard to hard effort on a scale of 1-10), such as from cycling or stair climbing, three times per day. However, these brief daily movement sessions are not meant to replace structured exercise sessions supervised by qualified exercise professionals. The primary role of exercise snacks is to complement client-centered exercise programming, aiming to engage clients with excess weight in efficient regular bodily movement. In other words, supervised exercise is about being physically active in various fitness settings to achieve health and fitness goals, whereas movement snacks are about opposing sedentarism and improving the client’s health in daily settings, such as at home or at work (Islam et al. 2022).

Tips for Using Exercise Snacks

Given that any movement is better than no movement, exercise professionals should try to inspire their clients with excess weight to be more active every day. Clients can be advised to try the following options, each resulting in 10 to 15 total minutes of activity (Fountaine 2023):

• Set reminders on their smartphone to interrupt sedentary behavior and break up sitting time with 1 to 2 minutes of light- to moderate-intensity walking once every 20 to 30 minutes.
• Walk in place at a moderate pace during TV commercials. This is a clever strategy for breaking up prolonged sitting as an exercise snack at home.
• Store healthy snacks and their water bottle away from their desk (i.e., on a separate floor or in the farthest room on the same floor) so that they have to climb a flight of stairs or walk each time they want to eat or drink something.
• Spend a few minutes on a movement snack before their lunch break, using foundational bodyweight exercises such as chair squats, incline push-ups, chair dips, supported static lunges, an incline plank, or seated or standing marching.
• Plan short walks with a colleague outside the office before or after their work schedule.
• Use lightweight, portable muscle-strengthening equipment (e.g., a set of dumbbells, a medicine ball, or a stability ball) two or three times per day, if they have access to a home or office gym.
• Walk to a local coffee shop located at least one block away from the office or house each morning.

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