TORONTO — People who have large waistlines and don’t work out can still improve their level of cardiorespiratory fitness by moving around more, suggests the co-author of a kinesiology study conducted in Kingston, Ont.
Boosting the intensity and duration of everyday activities — like climbing stars, doing housework and walking down the hall to talk to a colleague instead of sending an email — is better than nothing, she says.
Ashlee McGuire did the research, published this spring in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, as a graduate student at Queen’s University.
“This gives us a good message because then we can inform these individuals that don’t like doing the traditional, more difficult long-duration physical activity . . . you can go out for two minutes at a time, you can do just a little bit, and that might help your health long term,” she said in an interview from Calgary.
But make no mistake: these incidental physical activities are still not considered as beneficial as real exercise.
“Doing this random sporadic stuff is better than doing nothing, but it’s not as good as doing your 30-minute bouts every day of high-intensity exercise,” said McGuire, who wrote the paper with Robert Ross, a professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies.
For the study, they recruited 135 people through the newspaper, radio ads and word of mouth. Everyone was abdominally obese — defined as a waist circumference of at least 102 cm (40 inches) in men and at least 88 cm (35 inches) in women.
In terms of body mass index, they were classified as overweight or obese, and they all self-identified as being inactive.
The subjects had the duration and intensity of their physical activity measured over a week-long period using an accelerometer, a contraption worn at the waist.
Their fitness levels were also measured, using spirometry to see how much oxygen they were taking in, and a treadmill test in which the speed was increased every minute until they could no longer maintain the pace.
“What we found was overall physical activity was positively associated with their measure of fitness,” McGuire reported.
“Most of this physical activity consisted of very low-intensity physical activity — so this is you maybe preparing supper or strolling through the mall, or doing something that’s very easy and not taxing to your body.”
She divided her subjects into three groups according to the findings, and found the least active one-third accumulated only six minutes per day of this incidental physical activity, while the most active group managed to average just over 30 minutes per day.
The more activity people engaged in, the better their levels of fitness. Intensity also mattered — those who moved around more quickly had better fitness levels than those who moved slowly.
Examples of more intense physical activity might be stair climbing, walking quickly to get to a meeting because you’re late, or running to catch a bus.