Scientists Shocked: Just 9 Minutes of THIS Equals Hours of Exercise

Let's talk about some of these, you know, sort of short bursts of physical activity. Starting with the vigorous

activity. Starting with the vigorous intermittent lifestyle activity studies.

These are the VIPA studies. Um, we've

talked about these before on the podcast. Marty Kabala came on. He's been

podcast. Marty Kabala came on. He's been

a co-author on some of these papers. Um,

talking about this concept where, you know, researchers are using these accelerometers. They are measuring

accelerometers. They are measuring people's everyday movement in these short bursts that they don't necessarily consider if you sit down and ask them about their physical activity for the

past week, right? So these short burst of, you know, carrying groceries up three flights of stairs or I raced to the get to catch my, you know, subway because I didn't want to miss it or

yeah, I was playing with my new four-month old puppy puppy like I do twice a day or whatever. like these are short bursts of your physical activity where you're getting your heart rate up in everyday situations. It's not

necessarily a structured exercise snack, which you know also is another way of doing that, but it's again it's the stuff that people are just sort of everyday doing as part of their lives.

And um there's just I think mounting evidence now there's beneficial outcomes with these types of short bursts of physical activity that we just can't

ignore. We just can't ignore it anymore.

ignore. We just can't ignore it anymore.

And I've probably cited this one nature study like a million times, so I forgive me for the people that have heard me say this a million times.

>> I think you're responsible probably for the I don't know, however many like downloads of that article on their website they have.

>> Yeah, it's pretty popular. It's pretty

popular um study. So people these these short vilas can be anywhere between 1 minute to 3 minutes in length. You know,

they're they're they're not super long.

It's certainly not 10-minute on the Pelaton, right? One to three minutes.

Pelaton, right? One to three minutes.

And they're done multiple times a day, right? because it's like just your

right? because it's like just your everyday life is what we're talking about. And so I one of the most profound

about. And so I one of the most profound findings of the study I like to talk about one of the one of the Bilpa studies is um on the upper end of that.

So people that are doing like the 3 minutes short burst and they're doing that three times a day. So a total of almost 10 minutes a day, right? It's

like 9 minutes a day they're getting this physical activity. And those

individuals have a 50% reduction in cardiovascular related mortality, 40% reduction in all-c causeed mortality, a 40% reduction in cancer related mortality. Pretty robust. I mean,

mortality. Pretty robust. I mean,

especially if you start looking at some of these other studies where people are engaging in their structured physical activity based on their memories, their their brain's ability to recall in the last week what they've done done. It's

even more robust than some of that. And

and the reason I like that and and I know that you feel the same is that because it's actually capturing what's really going on. It's capturing the real

movement here. And um so these studies

movement here. And um so these studies these these vis vigorous intensity lifestyle studies there's multiple studies of them. There was one also that was recently done in women and looking

at like some of their um their cardiovascular disease risk and it was is pretty profound I think. So some of the some of the risks in the women um let's see if I can find that study.

Yeah. So it was a 45% lower risk of major cardiovascular events in women doing vila and they were just doing 3.4 minutes per day. So this is much less

than 9 minutes as I just discussed. So

they were doing 3.4 minutes of vilas per day and that's a 45% lower risk of major cardiovascular events. a 67% lower risk

cardiovascular events. a 67% lower risk of heart failure compared to the women that weren't doing any of these physical activity bursts throughout the day. And

if you think about that, that's not a lot of time. And you know, we all have aging parents like like just imagine if we could get them to do 4 minutes a day

of some kind of vigorous intensity activity. Now, maybe your parents are

activity. Now, maybe your parents are retired and they're not necessarily trying to get to the subway or the train or whatever. It's going to be more of a

or whatever. It's going to be more of a structured exercise snack. And I'll let you kind of talk about some of that, but like we, you know, they can engage in jumping jacks or maybe chair squats or people that are, you know, maybe not

older, they can do burpees or, you know, you know, body weightight squats or, you know, push-ups, like a combination of all these things. Um, and we're talking about really having a pretty outsized effect on reducing some of these

negative health outcomes. Um, and the other thing is is that what was so interesting is there's another study that really, it was a Vilpa study. When

I say Velpa again people, I'm talking about vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity. This is not something

physical activity. This is not something this is this isn't going to the gym and doing Pelaton. This is just your

doing Pelaton. This is just your movement throughout the day. Um being as measured by with an accelerometer. Um

the benefits were equivalent to people that were doing structured exercise, right? So there was like 62,000 people

right? So there was like 62,000 people um who actually did exercise and they compared that to people who were doing Vilpa and it was crazy but the same

outcomes in terms of risk reduction. It

was comparable and I love that. I love

it so much because it really it really shows that your body doesn't care if it's structured exercise or not. It just

wants the movement. It just wants the movement. So super important to to point

movement. So super important to to point out.

>> Yeah. In a lot of those studies, most of those studies too were in nonex exercisers. So they were in people who

exercisers. So they were in people who reported or said that, you know, I don't regularly engage in structured exercise and I just then they just did Vilpa. So

the non-ex exercisers benefited that and like you said, similar to people who exercise, which is kind of a crazy finding. Um, and it's interesting

finding. Um, and it's interesting because reading all these studies and in the past few years is is something that I definitely had changed my mind on in that I used to think, oh, if you're not

going to the gym for 30 to 40 minutes, and obviously it depends on the goal you're training for. If you're training for a competition or something, you need to do a dedicated training session. But

if it's kind of just for health outcomes, it used to be, oh, you 15 minutes at least, and if you're not doing 30 to 45, it's kind of a waste of time. But now it just seems that even if it's less than

10 minutes, and they even removed it from the physical activity guidelines.

The guidelines used to say 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous or 150 to 300 minutes of moderate performed in bouts of 10 minutes or longer. And they

actually nixed that part from the guidelines. It's not even in there

guidelines. It's not even in there anymore. So they no longer acknowledge

anymore. So they no longer acknowledge that you need to do it in 10 minutes or more. You can do it in whatever length

more. You can do it in whatever length bout you want to. Obviously probably a minute maybe minimum, but to four minutes is great. And so it's something that I've changed my mind on personally in regards to if I'm talking to people

about how they should do activity. It's

no longer it needs to be 30 minutes or more. It's just like accumulate,

more. It's just like accumulate, accumulate, accumulate as much as you can. Like you said, your body, it really

can. Like you said, your body, it really doesn't care. It's not your body doesn't

doesn't care. It's not your body doesn't have a watch or a clock where it's measuring your physical activity. It

kind of just knows like how much you're doing over the day and the stimulus that it's that it's getting. For sure.

>> Yeah. And I was talking to someone yesterday about this who, you know, is interested in health and wants to be healthy but like hates exercise. And

their response was, "Thank God. Like the

running with my dog that I'll like do in burst or like with my kid like counts."

And I think that's important because it's not that we're disincentivizing people to not engage in structured exercise. We're rewarding people who do

exercise. We're rewarding people who do this unstructured exercise and we're saying keep doing it. It matters. It

adds up. And I'm totally with you on it.

You know, these these Vilpa studies, these vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity studies have really changed my mind as well. I was probably less of a snob than you because you're an endurance athlete, but I was somewhat

of a snob thinking like, no, you have to like you have to have structured time and like, you know, get your heart rate up and really like dedicate time to this. and and these studies even at

this. and and these studies even at first I was kind of like well how is it you know okay let's say 10 10 minutes a day you're doing that every day so that's what 70 minutes it was even less than that it was 9 minutes so it was

even less right so like you're like okay around 70 minutes a week I'm getting a 50% reduction in in cardiovascular related mortality but the guidelines say 75 minutes a week is the minimum now I

get it like this study is saying no we underestimated what the vigorous you know activity really is giving giving you in terms of benefit for these health outcomes, right? Because of the way

outcomes, right? Because of the way everything was calculated, it wasn't based on health outcome data and it wasn't based on, you know, actual empirical data measuring, you know, how

vigorous, you know, your exercise is and how that correlates to health outcomes.

And so this is all it's so important.