Cristina Galafate

Updated Sunday, March 10, 2024-02:10

  • Wellbeing Yesterday 10,000 steps a day, today 3,967: is it enough to be healthy?

  • Health 7 (atomic) habits to get back to routine, improving your physical and mental well-being

One of the many smart

smartwatches

on the market usually "scolds" us if we don't get up from time to time to move.

Take, for example, a Fitbit, designed to keep us

active for at least nine hours a day with 250 steps

per hour.

It vibrates and signals: "Get up and move", with the goal of reaching the desired 10,000 steps a day indicated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a minimum daily movement.

The truth is that not everyone can (or does not want to, or it is not among their priorities) to dedicate

an hour a day

to physical exercise.

To that time you probably have to add the trips to and from the sports center, which is not always on the itinerary (close to work or home), which is most advisable so as not to fail or make up excuses.

But even those who manage to train an average of three times a week tend to have

very sedentary jobs

and long hours, at least in Spain, as has been debated in recent weeks.

The result is that, even with physical activity involved in the best of cases, it is difficult to reach that goal of 10,000.

BURST OF MOTION

See this post on Instagram

Some studies that are not so recent have already pointed out that when you sit all day, your muscles are not as good at

absorbing and using amino acids

, which are the building blocks of protein.

This could mean that you don't build as much muscle or that the calories you consume aren't used efficiently and could be stored in forms you don't want (like fat).

Other more recent research supports this thesis because it has been seen that short breaks from work, even at the desk, could wake up the muscles and keep them working in your favor.

When participants walked

for two minutes every half hour

, or stood up and performed 15 chair squats (standing up and sitting down in their chair), their muscles better absorbed and utilized the amino acids in their bloodstream, this study says.

"Sometimes we think that training a few minutes a day is enough, but we work for eight hours sitting, we eat sitting and we go home and continue sitting on the couch. What I always recommend is that, in basic actions

such

as climbing stairs "Let's at least choose the option of walking instead of using the mechanics or the elevator," explains Antonio Sánchez Carrascosa, personal trainer and

coach

at CrossFit Coraje.

MICROWORKOUTS IN THE DAY

These are the so-called

movement

snacks , those

small doses of physical activity

carried out throughout the day.

"Everything that involves moving is important and helps burn calories. From going to work by bicycle if you can to other more everyday actions such as not standing in the long corridors of the Metro or walking around the office while you are on a call on your cell phone" , exemplifies Sánchez.

Small steps in the end make a bigger journey.

"The ideal is to stay active in short bursts, because technology is making us much lazier. We see more and more people, especially young people,

on scooters instead of walking

and we become very comfortable, when we are designed to move "admits the expert.

In fact, a study shows that climbing stairs every hour, during a nine-hour sitting work day, improves glycemic control in overweight people and the goddess of glucose,

Jessie Inchauspé,

confirmed in her research to write her book that going for a walk after meals reduced insulin spikes in the blood.

20 MINUTES A DAY

When do benefits show?

With only a dozen bursts of these two minutes each day,

adding up to about 20 minutes in total

, it is already associated with a reduction in mortality.

That little more than a quarter of an hour will always be better than doing nothing.

And we can achieve it even without time, while we are watching Netflix in the living room, so there are no impediments.

Research suggests that if you sit all day, you could be causing

problems for your overall health, heart, and brain

.

So you have a lot to gain (and very little to lose) by finding time to walk for two minutes or do squats for 30 seconds, even if you get weird looks at the office.

He thinks that no one looks down on someone who goes out to smoke, that is much more 'normalized'.