We like to snack. In fact, we’re going to encourage it!
Yup, you read that correctly. We’re encouraging you to snack it up!
But not just any old snack will do. We’re talking about snacking on stairs.
Stairs?
Let me explain…
A new study by Canadian researchers found that climbing stairs at short intervals throughout the day can improve cardiovascular health and may even add years to your life. This “exercise snacking”, as they call it, can be super effective for those who don’t have time to make it to the gym for an extended workout, so says senior author, Martin Gibala. He says that “The findings make it even easier for people to incorporate ‘exercise snacks’ into their day…Those who work in office towers or live in apartment buildings can vigorously climb a few flights of stairs in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening and know they are getting an effective workout.”
Gibala’s team examined whether or not short bursts of climbing stairs throughout the day did enough to improve cardiorespiratory fitness (CFR). CFR is a marker linked to the risk of heart disease and longevity.
For this study, they monitored a group of sedentary young adults by asking them to climb a three-flight stairwell three times per day, separated by one to four hours of recovery, over a six-week period.
The control group did not exercise.
They found that the group that climbed the stairs or had the “exercise snacks” were more fit and stronger compared to the group who didn’t “snack”. They also found the snackers generated more power in a cycling test.
The co-author of the study, Jonathan Little, reaffirms, “We know that sprint interval training works, but we were a bit surprised to see that the stair snacking approach was also effective… Vigorously climbing a few flights of stairs on your coffee or bathroom break during the day seems to be enough to boost fitness in people who are otherwise sedentary.”
You don’t need to take a huge amount of time to run to the gym and workout for hours. You just need to grab yourself a snack a few times a day. You know what they say, “A snack of stairs a day can keep cardiorespiratory fitness in play!”
Or something like that.
So what are you waiting for? Go grab yourself a snack!
Sources:
https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/10.1139/apnm-2018-0675#.XMBs9WhKhyx
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000461