Taking the stairs at least twice a day for a minimum of three days a week could be enough exercise to help improve your cardiorespiratory fitness. — Filepic
Exercise snacks – intentional short bursts of physical activity – may be an effective way of boosting the cardiorespiratory fitness of physically inactive adults.
This is according to a review of the available research, published online Oct 7 (2025) in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Adherence to exercise snacking throughout the day was high, the findings indicate.
Therefore, this approach could help counter the perceived lack of time and low motivation – frequently-cited barriers to fulfilling the recommended weekly quota of physical activity for health – say the researchers.
Globally, around a third of adults and 80% of teens fail to meet the recommended physical activity levels of 300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity, or 75-150 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity physical activity, they note.
A growing body of evidence indicates that exercise snacks, such as stair-climbing or weights, have the potential to improve health and counter the deleterious effects of prolonged sitting.
But most of these studies have relied on quasi-experimental designs or qualitative analyses, they add.
To fill this gap, the researchers set out to evaluate the effects of exercise snacks on cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular endurance and cardiometabolic factors, such as blood fats and body fat distribution, to see if this might be a practical and scalable approach to curbing physical inactivity and its associated effects on health.
They scoured research databases for relevant clinical trials published up to April (2025), and found 11 from Australia, Canada, China and Britain that were suitable for analysis.
These involved a total of 414 sedentary or physically-inactive adults, over two-thirds (69%) of whom were women.
Exercise snacks were defined as bursts of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity lasting five minutes or less.
These do not include warm-up, cool-down and intermediate recovery periods.
They also were done at least twice a day, between three and seven days a week, for one to three months.
The ‘snacks’ mainly consisted of stair-climbing – either as continuous bouts or at repeated intervals – for young and middle-aged adults.
Leg-focused strength exercises and tai chi were the dominant forms among older adults.
Analysis of the data showed that exercise-snacking significantly improved cardiorespiratory fitness in adults, although the evidence in support of its impact on muscular endurance in older adults (69-74-year-olds) was limited.
Nor was exercise-snacking associated with any significant effects on leg strength or cardiometabolic factors, including body composition, blood pressure and blood fat profiles.
But compliance was high, at 91%, as was the ability to stick with the programme (83%), highlighting the potential feasibility and acceptability of this approach in real world unsupervised settings, suggest the researchers.
They acknowledge various limitations to their findings, chief among which was the limited number of studies with limited sample sizes included in their data synthesis.
The study design and methodology of the included studies also varied considerably.
Nevertheless, they conclude: “The time efficient nature of exercise snacks may help overcome common barriers to physical activity, such as perceived lack of time and low motivation.
“Exercise snacks may enhance adherence to regular physical activity by providing short, flexible exercise bouts that are easier to integrate into daily routines.”
