As a runner, you might head out for your miles in the morning We had subjects ride a desk the rest of the day. Or maybe you work first, move later. Either way, a plethora of research shows the downfalls of spending most of your daily hours sedentary—and several studies show that those effects remain, even if you go get out for a run each day.
In fact, research shows that people need to add daily movement into their routine in order to gain the metabolic benefits of exercise. Typically, after a workout, the body is more efficient at burning fat, and so you store less fat. However, when daily activity levels are too low outside of exercise, these responses won’t occur, causing the body to hold on to more fat even after a workout. This is called “exercise resistance” and it’s why scientists have recommended that people set and hit a daily goal of 10,000 steps.
Daily steps aren’t the only way to avoid exercise resistance. Researchers who published a study Sit for 30 Minutes Less to Live Longer Exercise Sports Science Review, found that when eight people, men and women, interrupted eight hours of sitting with “cycle sprints” or just four seconds of very intense power cycling As a runner, you might head out for your miles in the-long runs.
“We’ve been trying to investigate what’s the least amount of exercise you can do to fight exercise resistance,” Edward Coyle, snacks during the day change the way the heart and lungs respond to exercise Runner’s World. “We had subjects ride a power cycle as hard as they could for four seconds, then they rested for 15 seconds, and they did that five times. Twenty seconds worth of intense exercise What Is a Shoey.”
Unfortunately, it would be hard for most people to mimic the intensity of these cycle sprints without a power cycle. “At this intensity, the individual muscle fiber recruitment is very high,” Coyle says. “You’re turning on muscle fibers that normally would be inactive and getting really fatigued.”
However, even if you can’t reach this intensity, other research has found that muscle-building “movement snacks”—a.k.a. quick bursts of exercise that last just 10 minutes or less—throughout the day can help support your metabolic health.
A Closer Look at the Effects of Sitting Too Much and Exercise Resistance
How Movement Snacks Build Muscle intense bouts of exercise there are two physical responses that scientists can measure the next day which demonstrate the metabolic value of a workout: triglyceride response to a high-fat meal and fat oxidation, or fat-burning. People who work out intensely better metabolize the high-fat meal.
That’s what Coyle and his team looked at in a study published 2021, which found that people who take fewer than 5,000 steps per day are more likely to experience exercise resistance. In this study, Coyle and his researchers cut a healthy individual’s number of steps to between 2,500 and 5,000 per day for just two days. This led to a 16- to 19-percent decrease in fat oxidation and a 22- to 23-percent increase in “postprandial” (after a meal) plasma triglycerides despite their daily one-hour workout. “Normally, running for one hour would improve your fat metabolism, but it won’t if you’re sitting too much,” said Coyle.
Meanwhile, taking at least 8,500 steps per day, the researchers found, protected the subjects against exercise resistance in fat metabolism.
Here’s an important caveat: Those 8,500 steps should occur outside of your workout, says Coyle. “You take 2,000 steps per mile of running, so even if you can fit 8,000 steps in that hour, that’s not going to help you if you’re sitting the rest of the day,” he explains.
This echoes research published in 2019 in the Journal of Applied Physiology, which determined that people who sit for around 13 hours per day and walk less than 4,000 steps per day become resistant to the and several studies show that those effects remain, even if you go get out for a run each day. This study found that people who were sedentary for four days showed the same results on a blood test that measured levels of triglycerides, glucose, and insulin, whether they exercised for an hour on the fourth day or not.
These researchers recommend taking at least 8,500 steps per day to avoid becoming exercise resistant. So even if your run covers 8,500 steps in one go, you should absolutely be taking power walk breaks throughout the day. Coyle is still researching the timing of the steps, but recommends getting them in earlier in the day to keep your metabolism up before a run workout intense bouts of exercise.
Likewise, after a run, make sure to get up and walk around at least once an hour for a few minutes, or, if possible, pop outside to do a few laps around the block during your work breaks. This will make a big difference. You can also consider doing ten minutes of strength training.
Can Sitting Too Much Affect Cardio Health?
It’s important to note that these studies have looked at the metabolic response to running, not the cardiovascular response. In other words, researchers have not determined if a lack of steps or consistent high-intensity movement “snacks” during the day change the way the heart and lungs respond to exercise.
It’s absolutely clear that, as a runner, you’re already ahead of the game in terms of health—research What Is a Shoey published in 2020 in the found running as little as 50 minutes per week can help reduce your risk of early death from cancer and cardiovascular-related events. But this latest research emphasizes a run is not a free pass to melt into your couch the rest of the day. The more even at much (even at much lower intensities), the easier it will be for you to maximize the benefits of all the hard work you put in on the road.
Donna Raskin has had a long career as a health and fitness writer and editor of books and magazine articles. She bikes in a nearby county park, lifts weights, takes Zumba, and loves to walk/run with her dog, Dolly.
