Struggling to maintain a continuous workout for calorie burn? Consider taking short breaks during your walks instead of pushing for a long, uninterrupted session. A recent study suggests that short bouts of exercise could help you burn more calories.
According to the study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, doing short bouts of walking or climbing stairs requires more oxygen and energy compared to long strolls.
In a trial conducted among ten participants, researchers investigated how the duration of walking affected their body’s energy use, with changes in mechanical effort, intensity, and time. The participants walked on a stair climber for 10 to 240 seconds at different speeds (0.20, 0.25, and 0.36 m/s) and on a treadmill at 1.39 m/s.
The results indicate that walking or climbing stairs in 10- to 30-second bouts required 20 to 60% more oxygen than covering the same distance in one continuous session. Researchers explain that this happens because starting from rest requires more energy, while continuous walking uses less over time.
“Our findings show that the time-averaged oxygen uptake and metabolic cost are greater for shorter than longer bouts: 30-s bouts consume 20–60% more oxygen than steady-state extrapolations. This is partially explained by the proportionally greater non-metabolic oxygen uptake and leads to lower efficiency for shorter bouts. Inferring metabolic cost from steady state substantially underestimates energy expenditure for short bouts,” the researchers wrote.
“When we walk for shorter bouts, we use more energy and consume more oxygen to cover the same distance. It’s like having a car that consumes more fuel during the first few kilometers than it does afterwards,” said Francesco Luciano the first author of the study.
The study findings offer encouraging news, particularly for the elderly or those with gait disorders who find long exercise sessions challenging, as health benefits can still be gained through short bursts of walking.
“If we want to design programs to promote physical activity or exercise for these people, we need to rethink how to estimate their energy demands and adapt. Understanding the energy demands of short bouts of walking could help us promote physical activity in a more inclusive way,” Luciano said.