The two-minute workouts that could add years to your life

Short bursts of exercise can help create a nearly 40 per cent reduction in overall mortality risk. Photo / Bruno Nascimento, Unsplash

From climbing stairs to running for a bus, research suggests short bursts of activity can have long-lasting health benefits.

For those of us who are time poor, or gym-allergic, it is music to the ears. A new study, published in Nature Medicine, indicates that truly tiny quantities of commonplace activity can have a serious impact on your health, if done with a little added oomph.

Led by a team at the University of Sydney, researchers studied 25,000 people in the UK, aged between 40 and 69, who don’t exercise - or, at least, don’t think that they do. They wore activity trackers on their wrists, and were then monitored for almost seven years.

Why? “It’s well established that leisure-time exercise, like gyms, running, or competitive sports have many health benefits,” says Emmanuel Stamatakis, who led the study. The NHS recommends that adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate activity (a couple of doubles tennis matches, say), or 75 minutes of vigorous activity (one-and-a-bit aerobics classes) every week to reduce our risk of heart disease or stroke. But, says Stamatakis, “we understand less about the health potential of those activities that are done as part of daily living and which often reach vigorous intensity... stair climbing, bursts of very fast walking, walking uphill, walking carrying backpack or shopping bags, vigorous domestic housework or gardening.”

So his team set about examining the differences between those who occasionally raised their heart rate with such activities and those who didn’t. The result? “We weren’t surprised to find beneficial associations,” says Stamatakis. “We knew previously that vigorous physical activity is very potent, especially when it is intermittent, repeated, and regular. But the magnitude of these associations is quite striking.”

Engaging in just three to four bouts of VILPA (vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity) a day, even if each bout lasted only for between one and two minutes, was associated with a nearly 40 per cent reduction in overall mortality risk (including from cancer) and nearly a 50 per cent reduction in cardiovascular disease related deaths. Most interesting of all, says Stamatakis, is this: “there is a good chance that participants in this study did not even know that they were doing vigorous intensity physical activity.”

Two-minute exercises: How to do them correctly

“Many day-to-day activities can be converted to a VILPA burst, just by tweaking its intensity,” says Stamatakis. In other words: “do it in a more energetic and vigorous way.”

How to tell if you’ve stepped up the pace with sufficient intensity? “The first sign is getting out of breath, followed by an increase in heart rate, both of which should be felt after about 15-30 seconds, depending on the person’s fitness level and whether the starting point is rest, light, or moderate-intensity activity.” says Stamatakis. If you can still sing, your activity is light in intensity, he says. Able to speak? You’ve hit moderate intensity. “When we can hardly speak a few words, we are hitting the vigorous intensity zone,” he says. “This is high quality movement, with great health enhancing potential if repeated regularly.”

If that sounds like your kind of exercise regime, then read on.

Break a sweat in your coffee break

Exercising with a focus on intensity instead of duration is: “hugely beneficial for fitness,” agrees personal trainer Zana Morris, pioneer of the 15-minute workout. “It’s great for the heart, for the oxygen uptake, and results in a natural hormonal release, specifically growth hormone which in turn helps ‘push’ protein back into the body.”

This has brilliant health and fitness benefits to those of all ages, she says: “but up until the age of 25, our bodies naturally release growth hormone in abundance, repairing our muscle tissue and lean body mass. After 25, this reduces and can even stop completely, but sleep and high intensity training can still trigger it into action... If ever there was an anti-aging system out there, it’s high intensity training.”

Short bursts of intense exercise are even good for our immune systems, she claims: “they cause the body to recruit and ship its defensive cells to peripheral tissues such as the lining of our nose, mouth and lungs, in short, protecting us against infection. Over time, the cumulative effect is to strengthen and possibly even delay the ageing process of our immune system too.”

So next time you’re waiting for the kettle to boil: “Do press ups against the counter top, as many as you can, before it boils.”

Try stair lunges

“See what happens if you try to take two or even three at a time,” suggests Morris. “It’s almost like you’re working lunges into the climb.”

Run for an invisible bus

“If you’re walking somewhere, pretend you’re trying to catch a bus and deliberately break into a run for one block,” suggests Morris. “The key is to get out of breath. So for some, a brisk walk will be enough, particularly if you’re carrying shopping because then you’re weight bearing as well.”

Do this ad-break (or work desk) workout

“Before settling down to watch TV, stand up and sit down, fast, for a minute - or try doing it for an entire ad break,” says Morris. Do the same if you’re returning to your desk from a meeting or break. “The benefit of doing this for a short and specific length of time, as opposed to aiming for a specific number of repetitions, is that you see how much stronger and fitter you’re getting, by counting how many repetitions you’re fitting into that time period.”

Get down with the kids

Spending the holidays with children, or grandchildren? “Hopscotch!” suggests Dr Frances H Mikuriya, Founder of Frances M Fitness and Body Machine Performance Studio. If played in intense bursts: “not only is it good for cardiovascular conditioning, it is also excellent for coordination, agility, strength and balance.”

Spin this commute hack

“If you’re looking for an exercise that’s non-weight bearing but can improve your cardiovascular fitness without loading your joints then cycling is one of the best options,” says Mikuriya. She suggests the following to work in short bursts of VIPLA. “Map out specific journey points that are less traffic-heavy and sprint through the distance. Or vary your route to work, find uphill areas and sprint through these areas. Then continue to pedal at your usual pace until you reach another incline and repeat the burst.”

Jump start your working day

“For those seated all day in front of their computers and struggling to have an exercise break, then short bouts of intensive workouts can not only get you invigorated for your next meeting but can have tremendous benefits for your health and wellbeing,” says Mikuriya. So next time you have a short break between calls, do a quick round of jumping jacks and squat jumps.

Mix it up

Stamatakis’s team did not compare the effects of these short bursts with longer bouts of conventional exercise. But, he points out, one 2020 US study associated 75-150 minutes of vigorous physical activity with a 36-45 per cent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, pretty comparable to the 32-34 per cent lower risk associated with 4.4 daily minutes (or 31 minutes a week) of VILPA in his study.

Don’t ditch your gym membership yet, though. “When we repeated the analyses in a sample of over 62,000 exercisers, we found very comparable associations,” says Stamatakis. Regular exercisers who engage in 4.4 minutes of VIPLA a day (whether through their regime, or in their daily life) seem to significantly lower their risk of death, compared to exercisers who did none. While the study did not probe the reasons for this: “I speculate that VILPA may have some long-term benefits for “weekend warrior” exercisers,” says Stamatakis, “and those who only reach moderate intensity, like relatively slow recreational walkers.” Either way, he advises those with established exercise routines to view VIPLA as supplementary to their usual routine, not as a replacement.

Finally, the key takeaway according to Stamatakis, is to mix up your daily two-minute exercises in order to maximise the potential health benefits. “The more diverse any physical activity routine is, the better,” says Stamatakis. “A variety of regular VILPA activities will engage more muscle groups and give the body a better signal to make health-enhancing adaptations. The key thing is to turn VILPA into a lifelong habit that is done several times a day, ideally every day.”