How Exercise Snacks Break Up Sedentary Time

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: The idea here is that when you are sitting for six hours or more, that length of sedentary time is an independent risk factor for some diseases, particularly cancer. I know you are interested in cancer because you are a cancer survivor. We should all be interested in cancer because it is terrible to deal with. The best thing you can do is try as much as possible to prevent it.

Exercise snacks are a great way to break up sedentary time. As you mentioned, they are easy to do. What is an exercise snack? I would say it should be about a minute long. You are doing 10 bodyweight squats. That probably takes about 30 seconds.

Dan Bongino: Yeah, I do them every—

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Traditionally, it is about a minute, but you are doing them on the hour. They can be bodyweight squats, high knees, jumping jacks, burpees, or anything that gets your heart rate up. There have now been many studies on these exercise snacks.

What I just described was a structured snack that helps break up sedentary time. There are also unstructured exercise snacks called VILPA: vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity. This is when people take advantage of everyday life to get their heart rate up. They take the stairs instead of the elevator, sprint up the stairs, walk or bike to work rather than drive, or sprint around with their children, grandchildren, or new puppy. You use moments in everyday life to get your heart rate up. It is different from deciding to do a structured set of bodyweight squats.

Several VILPA studies have been published in high-impact scientific journals. People wear accelerometers on their wrists, which measure their movement. This provides empirical data rather than asking someone how much they exercised last week and extrapolating that answer over years.

Multiple studies have now found striking associations. People who do three minutes of intense activity three times per day—a total of nine minutes spread throughout the day—have shown approximately 40 percent lower cancer-related mortality, 40 percent lower all-cause mortality, and 50 percent lower cardiovascular-related mortality than people who do not perform those activity bouts. This includes people who do not identify as exercisers because they do not go to a gym. They may not realize that sprinting up the stairs or walking as part of daily life counts. You can also get benefits from doing less than nine minutes, but I like the three-minute intervals three times per day because those are large associations.

Dan Bongino: The calorie burn is important too. You may ask whether it burns only 10 or 15 extra calories. That is not the point. Over the course of a year, with approximately 3,500 calories in a pound of fat, you could burn two or three pounds of fat. Those become real numbers over time for an almost painless intervention.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I am glad you brought that up, Dan. Exercise guidelines recommend 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous exercise. That two-to-one ratio assumes that higher-intensity exercise burns roughly twice as many calories. It did not come from comparing outcomes such as deaths from cancer, cardiovascular disease, or respiratory disease.

A recent study measured physical activity with accelerometers and then examined health outcomes. It found that vigorous moments accumulated throughout the day were much more powerful than the old calorie-based ratio suggested.

In that study, vigorous-intensity exercise meant intentional exercise such as jogging, running, biking, or swimming. It also included sprinting moments such as playing with children or a puppy or sprinting up stairs.

Dan Bongino: Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Moderate-intensity activity included walking or housework—activities that raise your heart rate, but not as much. For every minute of vigorous-intensity exercise, people had to do four minutes of moderate-intensity exercise to get the same association with lower all-cause mortality. They had to do eight minutes of moderate activity to get the same association with lower cardiovascular mortality, heart attacks, and strokes, and 10 minutes to get the same association with lower type 2 diabetes incidence.

I think we are underappreciating the health benefits of vigorous-intensity exercise. The study also showed that it did not have to be 30 continuous minutes. It could be one minute here and three minutes there. Those moments add up and should be counted.

I do exercise snacks too. I use them to break up my day. They feel good and increase blood flow to the brain. For me, they provide an immediate mood boost and help me wake up. Like a cold plunge, this is an important lifestyle tool for improving my mood and energy. All you need is about a minute.

Dan Bongino: I do not do anything without them. When I was at the FBI, I did not go into a single meeting before doing air squats. I do not think I have said that on the show before.

I follow your clips everywhere, including your guest appearances. I think you may have been on The Diary of a CEO. The host said, “I just saw you doing 10 air squats before you came on,” and you said you do not do the show without them. I thought, “That is me. I do that too.” It works. It gets your brain into focus mode instead of lollygagging.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: For sure. I have to do a workout, even if it is only a few minutes, before I need my brain to be on for a podcast, presentation, or anything else. For me, it is essential. I make no compromises on that.