Exercise Snacks (VILPA)

Exercise snacks are very short bursts of vigorous activity spread through the day — stair sprints, fast uphill walking, quick cycling efforts — rather than a single continuous workout. Researchers call the incidental version vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA).

What published research reports

A Nature Medicine study (2022) of wearable-tracker data from 25,241 adults who reported doing no formal exercise found that as little as three to four one-to-two-minute bouts of vigorous everyday activity per day was associated with 38–40% lower all-cause and cancer mortality and 48–49% lower cardiovascular mortality over about seven years of follow-up — an observational association, the authors note, not a controlled trial. A review in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews (2022) reports that repeated brief stair-climbing bouts improved cardiorespiratory fitness in controlled studies and describes exercise snacks as a feasible strategy for people who struggle to schedule continuous exercise.

References

• Stamatakis E, et al. Association of wearable device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity with mortality. Nat Med. 2022;28:2521–2529. PubMed
• Islam H, Gibala MJ, Little JP. Exercise Snacks: A Novel Strategy to Improve Cardiometabolic Health. Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2022;50(1):31–37. PubMed