Too Much Sitting Negates The Benefits Of Your Exercise

Picture by Carsten Knoch from Flickr

Since my earlier post on Runners Run A Lot, Also Sit A Lot, I've received quite a few questions on how much does sitting affect us. So here's a follow up post on that article.

Well, to answer your queries, according to research, each hour of sitting negates 8 % of your gain from an hour's worth of running. So if you ran an hour this morning and then sit for 10 hours after that during the day, you lose about 80% of the health benefit you gained from your morning run.

That's rather upsetting isn't it? I've never thought I had to subtract (any health benefit) from my exercise before. Fortunately for me, I don't sit much during the day when I'm treating my patients. I sit most when I'm reading doing research and writing articles for this blog.

Now for the not so good news. If you do an hour's worth of moderate intensity exercise (running is considered vigorous exercise), you lose about 16 % of your workout gains from each hour of sitting.

The above mentioned data were the same for both men and women.

Researchers obtained the results through analysis of objective fitness and exercise data obtained through the National Education and Nutrition Survey (NHANES). This is an annual survey conducted to assess the country's exercise and nutrition habits.

So for office workers and those who work from home and are mostly sitting, you should be walking up stairs rather than using the lifts, stand while talking on your phone, sitting on a gym ball, using a standing desk, walking out during your lunch and use a pedometer to log your dally step count.

As Little Eva (and later Kylie Minogue) sang, "So come on come on, do the loco-motion with me." 

Reference 

Kulinski JP, Khera A, Ayers CR et al (2014). Association Between Cardiorespiratory Fitness And Acclerometer-derived Physical Activity And Sedentary Time in General Population. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2014.04.019. 

Surely I can sit now after all that walking ....

Picture by Julio Velasco from Flickr.