THE FIT FACTOR
IN today’s fast-paced world, we can become obsessed with immediate gratification and needing to see rapid results.
However, the concept of cumulative exercise offers an alternative perspective, small consistent efforts in physical activity that accumulate over time to produce significant results.
This approach makes exercise more accessible to everyone over a longer period of time.
This approach also embeds an attitude of persistence and dedication to achieving long-term goals rather than short-term gains, which may not always last.
Examples of this might be tracking your daily steps rather than focusing on more intensive activity, knowing that you are continually building towards the end goal works and keeps you focused.
Cumulative exercise is about embracing a philosophy of every little bit counts instead of fixating on intense, lengthy workouts that can be off-putting or unsustainable.
Incorporating movement into your daily life in more manageable increments, whether it’s taking the stairs instead of the lift, walking or biking for short errands instead of taking the car, or squeezing in a few minutes of stretching during breaks, seem relatively minor actions but they all add up over time.
Keep a log – if you are motivated visually this will help to keep you going and gives that extra push motivation.
If your primary goal is weight loss, this may take some time to see, therefore tracking your progress in other ways until that starts to happen will keep you focused.
Draw up a chart or mark your activities in a diary so you can see progress in the number of efforts made, you will be surprised how they add up. Here are some examples of how small efforts accumulate over time:
■ 10,000 steps is equivalent to five miles. To do this as one big effort takes roughly 1 hour 40 mins. But logging this throughout the day achieves the same outcome.
■ Walking one mile a day briskly (for a 77kg person) burns around 83 calories. Doing this for five days a week with two days off can burn around 415 calories. In a year you’d cover 260 miles burning a staggering 21,580 calories.
■ Five to 10 calories are burnt per minute of stair climbing. If you spent 10 minutes climbing stairs three times per week at the higher end of the calories burn, that’s an additional 15,600 calories burnt in the year just climbing stairs.
■ A one-minute plank per day builds to just over six hours over the course of a year. Your abdominal muscles will be stronger for it and you will notice other benefits of having a stronger core, such as better posture and improved support for your spine.
Cumulative exercise helps us shift
If you want to be taken seriously, be consistent Motivational quote of the day
our focus to the long term – and so aligns more with our lifespan and lifelong habits.
There is a time and a place for intense exercise regimes that you can also add in alongside cumulative efforts to accelerate health improvements.