Short bursts of structured exercise spread across the day, some lasting only a few minutes, can improve fitness in sedentary people, according to Brazilian physiotherapist Monica Schapiro, who points to a growing body of research on a strategy known as "exercise snacking."
Schapiro, a specialist in oncological rehabilitation and a member of Brazil Health, said the approach involves breaking up small, structured bouts of exercise throughout the day rather than requiring one continuous 40-minute or hour-long session.
For people who are sedentary, she said the results are particularly notable: small doses of exercise, done regularly and at the right intensity, can improve cardiorespiratory fitness in particular. She added that recent studies are also looking into possible metabolic benefits, though those findings are still less consistent.
Exercise snacking is not just standing up
Schapiro drew a distinction between physical activity and physical exercise. Physical activity is any body movement that increases energy expenditure, such as walking to another room, climbing a flight of stairs, washing dishes, tidying the house or standing up from a chair.
Physical exercise, she said, is a form of physical activity but with an added element: it is planned and structured with the specific aim of improving or maintaining a physical capacity.
Exercise snacking falls into that second category, she said, citing examples such as quickly climbing a few flights of stairs during a break, doing a short sequence of squats, or spending a few minutes on an activity that deliberately raises the heart rate. It is real exercise, she said, just split into small portions.
According to Schapiro, studies have tested sessions lasting just a few minutes, and even shorter bursts repeated several times a day. In people who were previously sedentary, these strategies mainly improved cardiorespiratory fitness. She said this challenges the long-held belief that five minutes of exercise is not worthwhile if a full hour is not available.
Breaking up sitting time matters too, for different reasons
Schapiro said a separate issue often gets mixed up with exercise snacking: interrupting long periods of sitting. A person could follow a structured exercise routine and still remain almost motionless for eight or ten hours during the rest of the day.
For that reason, she said, standing up periodically, walking a little, changing position and doing small activities throughout the day also matters.
She cited studies showing that breaking up long sitting periods with brief moments of movement can improve the body's glucose and insulin response after meals, particularly in people at higher metabolic risk. But she said this does not need to be labelled as exercise.
Schapiro said she often tells people that the best posture is the next one, since the human body was not designed to stay in the same position for hours. Standing, walking, stretching and changing position all add movement to the day and cut down sedentary time, she said. The two strategies do not replace one another, she added, since people can increase their daily physical activity while also fitting in small structured exercise sessions.
Five minutes do not need to become an hour
Schapiro said this may be the most useful point in the discussion. For a long time, she said, many people viewed exercise in binary terms, either doing a full session or doing nothing at all, but the body does not work that way. It responds to whatever stimulus it receives.
A set of squats, a few minutes climbing stairs or a brisk, deliberate walk can provide real cardiovascular and muscular stimulus, she said, especially for people starting from a low level of fitness.
She said exercise snacking can also help people overcome one of the biggest barriers to regular exercise: simply starting. For someone who is completely sedentary, she said, picturing five minutes of exercise can feel far less daunting than picturing an hour at the gym.
WHO guidelines still apply, expert cautions
Schapiro was careful to note that while research on short exercise sessions is promising, it does not mean traditional recommendations have lost their relevance. The World Health Organization continues to recommend that adults get between 150 and 300 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week, or between 75 and 150 minutes of vigorous activity, along with muscle-strengthening exercise.
The real shift, she said, is understanding that this weekly volume of exercise does not have to be completed in one sitting. For people who currently do no exercise at all, she said, small sessions can serve as an excellent starting point, with duration, intensity and variety able to increase as fitness improves.
The most important change, according to Schapiro, is abandoning the idea that exercise only counts when it requires gym clothes, a free hour and a dedicated space. The body does not know whether a person is in a gym or next to an office desk, she said. It simply responds to the stimulus. She suggested the question people should ask themselves is no longer whether they have an hour to train today, but where in their day they can fit in a few minutes of exercise.
