How does sitting affect your fitness? Eager to improve your fitness but the day job has you tied to a desk? Research shows that spending hour after hour sitting down isn’t good for us. A recent study suggests about 40 minutes per day of exercise is enough.
Up to 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous-intensity physical activity every day should balance out 10 hours of sitting still.
The recent study undertaken, involved over 44,000 people. It found the risk of death among those with a more sedentary lifestyle went up. Whilst, time spent engaging in physical activity went down.
To boil it down, putting in some reasonably intensive activities such as cycling or running can lower your risk of an earlier death. right back down to what it would be if you weren’t doing all that sitting around.
How does sitting affect your fitness?
Following the study, guidelines were published by the World Health Organisation 2020 Global Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour. These guidelines recommend physical activity to combat increased sedentary behaviour, brought on my the pandemic and associated lockdowns.
However, although 40 minutes is recommended. The guidelines do state that all physical activity counts and any amount of it is better than none. To be exact on the guidelines. WHO recommend 150-300 mins of moderate intensity or 75-150 mins of vigorous-intensity physical activity every week to counter sedentary behaviour.
It’s not just cycling or running which WHO recommends. Walking up the stairs instead of taking the lift, playing with children and pets, taking part in yoga or dancing, doing household chores and walking are all ways to be more physically active! Although all the research is less specific on ages, sex and body types it broadly gives people an idea of what good looks like.
If you’re looking to get into running, you should read my new to running post. The post gives some great recommendations for getting started. 😎
