Short spells of exercise better than doing it all at once

Anish Moonka on X: "Three-minute squat breaks every 45 minutes kept blood sugar lower than a single 30-minute walk during a long day of sitting. Three-minute walking breaks on the same schedule worked just as well. Eighteen young men with overweight or obesity, average age 21, completed four 8.5-hour days of sitting at Zhejiang University in China, in random order. On one day they sat the whole time. On another they took one 30-minute walk. On the other two, they got up every 45 minutes, 10 times in all, for 3 minutes of either walking or squats. All the active days burned the same amount of energy. The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports published the study in 2024. Glucose monitors worn all day showed that any movement beat nonstop sitting. Squat breaks and walking breaks both brought lower blood sugar after meals than the single long walk, with matching results. Stronger activity in the quadriceps, the big muscles on the front of the thigh, and in the buttock muscles went with lower blood sugar, according to muscle sensors worn during the day. The group was small, young, and all male. Splitting the same amount of movement into short, frequent breaks controlled blood sugar better than doing it all at once, whether those breaks were squats or walks. https://t.co/AwdRRvRpdu"

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  Anish Moonka

  @anishmoonka

  Three-minute squat breaks every 45 minutes kept blood sugar lower than a single 30-minute walk during a long day of sitting. Three-minute walking breaks on the same schedule worked just as well. Eighteen young men with overweight or obesity, average age 21, completed four 8.5-hour days of sitting at Zhejiang University in China, in random order. On one day they sat the whole time. On another they took one 30-minute walk. On the other two, they got up every 45 minutes, 10 times in all, for 3 minutes of either walking or squats. All the active days burned the same amount of energy. The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports published the study in 2024. Glucose monitors worn all day showed that any movement beat nonstop sitting. Squat breaks and walking breaks both brought lower blood sugar after meals than the single long walk, with matching results. Stronger activity in the quadriceps, the big muscles on the front of the thigh, and in the buttock muscles went with lower blood sugar, according to muscle sensors worn during the day. The group was small, young, and all male. Splitting the same amount of movement into short, frequent breaks controlled blood sugar better than doing it all at once, whether those breaks were squats or walks. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38629807/

  12:30 AM · Sep 24, 2026·

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