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snacking on exercise sprints boosts fitness and improves exercise performance

bursts of brief, intense exercise over the course of the day — known as “sprint exercise snacks” — can improve cardiorespiratory fitness in inactive young adults.

by canadian society for exercise physiology
published apr 12, 2022
read time 2 minute read
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snacking on exercise sprints boosts fitness and exercise performance
by hashim islam young adults too often sit most of the day, whether they’re studying, working, or enjoying online games and social media. but that can mean their heart and lungs are less fit — they have low cardiorespiratory fitness. this, in turn, increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.
how can young people incorporate some exercise to improve their fitness?
one answer is sprint interval training — short bursts of “all-out” exercise with brief recovery periods. studies show that these exercise sprints can improve fitness yet take less time to perform than other types of exercise. researchers at the university of british columbia, okanagan campus, wondered whether inactive young adults would get the same benefits if they did these sprints throughout the day, hours apart, instead of all at the same time. that is, when they needed an energy boost, they took a sprint exercise “snack” — a single short burst of physical activity — instead of taking a full “meal” of several intervals.

how the study was done

healthy but inactive young men and women (around 22 years of age) did either sprint interval training — three repeated 20-second bouts of “all-out” exercise separated by three-minute recovery periods during a single exercise session — or sprint exercise “snacks” — the same three 20-second bouts of “all-out” exercise but one to four hours apart. they did the intervals on a stationary bike three days a week for six weeks.
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researchers measured the participants’ cardiorespiratory fitness before and after the six weeks, based on breathing during a cycling test and a cycling time-trial (time required to complete a set amount of exercise as quickly as possible).

what the researchers found

from the beginning to the end of the six-week experiment, participants in both groups improved their fitness about four to six per cent and their performance of the cycling time-trial by two to three minutes. because there was no difference between groups, it is clear that taking sprint exercise “snacks” during the day is as effective as taking them all in a single session.
this may be a good way for young adults to fit exercise into their daily activities when they can, even if they can’t plan to get to a gym or go for a run. when they need an energy burst, they can take a quick exercise “snack” instead of trying to fit an entire exercise routine into their day or not bothering to exercise at all.
this article was written for the canadian society for exercise physiology by hashim islam, phd. this article summarizes the study little jp, langley j, lee m, myette-côté e, jackson g, durrer c, gibala mj and jung me. 2019. sprint exercise snacks: a novel approach to increase aerobic fitness. european journal of applied physiology. 119:1203–1212.
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https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-019-04110-z
this summary was written for the canadian society for exercise physiology and has been reviewed by the csep knowledge translation committee.

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