If there’s one insight that consistently changes the direction of my patients’ health, it’s this:
You don’t need a gym membership to improve your fitness or protect your heart. What really matters might be much smaller—and much easier—than you think.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the powerful evidence behind a simple strategy I give to nearly every patient I see. If you’ve ever asked:
- What’s the one thing I should be doing for my health?
- Does it really make a difference if I can’t do a full workout?
-
What should I be doing instead?
Then this article is for you.
Table of Contents
- The Misconception About Exercise
- Micro Workouts vs. Gym Workouts
- What the VILPA Study Reveals
- The Evidence on Exercise Snacks
- A Real Patient’s Story
- Bridging the Gap: What You Can Do
-
A Mindset Shift That Changes Everything
- Final Thoughts
- References
The Misconception About Exercise
A few days ago, a patient came to see me at the clinic, already convinced he knew what I was going to say.
He patted his stomach and gave the same tired line I’ve heard a thousand times.
“Doc, I know. I should be going to the gym. I just don’t have time.”
On my computer screen, I scanned his numbers. His blood pressure was nudging up. Cholesterol was creeping the wrong way. His dad had a heart attack in his fifties. He was forty-eight.
On paper, he didn’t look terrible. He was what many people would call “borderline”. But I’ve seen plenty of borderline patients go on to have very real heart attacks.
He explained the rest: by the time he’s made the commute home, helped his kids with homework, cooked dinner, etc., the evening’s practically over. Heading back out the door to drive 20 minutes to a gym to sweat on a treadmill for an hour was a non-starter.
But there was something else buried in what he was telling me—a belief I see all the time:
If it’s not a proper workout, it doesn’t count.
Micro Workouts vs. Gym Workouts
This is when I told him the most important thing I tell every patient. If they actually absorb it, it often changes the trajectory of their health more than almost anything else I say—particularly in light of a new clinical trial.
I said to him:
“I am not going to tell you to go to the gym.”
“You don’t need complex workouts. You just need to fit in micro workouts during the day.”
He looked confused. So I explained: what he needed was small bursts of effort scattered through the day. Ten seconds here, thirty seconds there.
- Climb stairs like you’re trying to catch a bus
- Power walk the last part of your commute
- Do a set of push-ups between work meetings
These little bursts of effort may do more for our health than the big gym session my patients often feel guilty about not doing.
He was skeptical—and asked a perfectly reasonable question:
Can these little bursts of exercise really make that big of a difference?
Let me walk you through the answer I gave him. Because this patient is not unusual. Countless patients honestly believe that if they cannot do exercise in the traditional way, it is not worth doing at all.
But two recent clinical trials suggest they are wrong. Particularly the second trial.
What the VILPA Study Reveals
In 2022, a research team looked at data from wearable devices worn by tens of thousands of people who reported doing no formal exercise. They simply lived their lives while wearing wrist trackers that recorded their movement [1].
The researchers looked for little moments when movement suddenly turned vigorous—like:
- A brisk climb up the stairs
- Fast walking to catch a train
-
Short bursts of effort lasting 10 to 60 seconds
These were called VILPA: Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity.
The typical person in the study did about 3 to 6 minutes of this per day, broken into small chunks [1].
So what did they find?
Compared to people with no VILPA, those who did just a few daily bursts had a:
- 38–40% reduction in all-cause and cancer mortality
-
48–49% reduction in heart disease mortality [1]
Even more striking: a new study published in fall 2025 suggested that just one minute per day of these vigorous bursts—broken into about five 10–20 second efforts—might be associated with a 44% reduction in all-cause mortality risk among people who do no structured exercise at all [2].
These are observational studies, so they can’t prove cause and effect. Fitter people may naturally move more vigorously, and that could partly explain why they live longer.
But they tell us something important:
Your body doesn’t care if your heart rate went up on a treadmill or from sprinting up the stairs carrying your child.
The heart only knows it was pushed—briefly—to work harder. And that seems to matter.
The Evidence on Exercise Snacks
The next step was moving from watching what people do to testing an actual intervention.
That’s where a new meta-analysis comes in—a study that pooled together 14 controlled trials involving 483 adults, testing some form of exercise snacks [3].
In these trials, people were asked to add short bursts of exercise into their normal day. Examples included:
- 1–2 minute stair climbs three times per day
-
Brief cycling sprints spaced throughout the workday
Control groups simply continued their usual routines.
The researchers looked at two main outcomes:
1. Fitness – including VO₂ max and peak power output
2. Cardiometabolic health – especially cholesterol and body composition
Here’s what they found:
- Large improvement in VO₂ max
-
Moderate improvement in peak power output [3]
In plain English: the people doing tiny bursts of effort ended up with meaningfully better fitness than people who didn’t—even though they never set foot in a gym.
As for cholesterol:
-
Total and LDL cholesterol fell by a moderate amount in the exercise snack groups [3]
Body weight and body fat didn’t change much—which is exactly what I’d expect from a realistic intervention adding a few minutes of effort, not hours of training [3].
There are caveats. The studies were small and used different protocols.
But taken together, the story they tell is surprisingly consistent:
Add short, intense bursts of movement into your day, and your fitness improves in ways that usually require much more structured training.
A Real Patient’s Story
Back to my patient. After seeing the data, he was very interested in adding exercise snacks into his daily routine.
It was something he could actually achieve, and he understood the benefits.
Using a motivational interviewing approach, I asked:
“What exercise snacks do you think you could reliably fit into your day?”
Here’s what he came up with:
- Park slightly further away from work, and powerwalk to the office
- Take the stairs (for 1–3 flights), and powerwalk up them
- While the kettle boils, do a wall squat
- In the evening with his kids, play chase, soccer, or jump on the trampoline
He was relieved that he no longer had to chase the perfect workout.
Instead, he was on the hunt for tiny moments where he could push his body just a bit harder than usual.
Bridging the Gap: What You Can Do
Let me be clear:
None of this replaces the standard exercise guidelines.
The authors of the meta-analysis are very specific about this [3]:
"While ExSn has demonstrated benefits for cardiometabolic health and lipid profiles, it is unlikely that physically inactive individuals will meet the recommended physical activity levels solely through this approach."
So, if you can manage:
- 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week
-
or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise
...that is still the gold standard.
But for the millions of people who are doing nothing at all, this matters.
Because the alternative is not some optimal gym program.
The alternative is often “nothing at all.”
And when nothing is what you’re comparing against, these small exercise snacks can be incredibly powerful.
A Mindset Shift That Changes Everything
A few months after that first appointment, my patient came back.
He walked in a little differently—shoulders back, movements looser.
I asked him how things were going.
He said chasing his kids around the yard didn’t feel quite as tough. He was noticing the difference.
His heart and muscles had been nudged regularly instead of left idle.
But the part that really interested me was what he said next:
“I actually feel like an active person now.”
Not gym active.
But the kind of person who takes the stairs and races his kids.
That’s the switch I’m always looking for.
Because once people start to see themselves as someone who moves, everything else becomes easier to build on. Maybe they join a gym. Maybe they start swimming.
But even if they don’t—the activity they’ve added is already paying off.
Final Thoughts
If you’re reading this and feel that same sinking feeling my patient had, here’s what I’d want you to take away:
If going to the gym or heading out for a run isn’t feasible for you, exercise snacks are a wonderful option.
- Climb the stairs a bit harder
- Walk a bit faster
- Play a bit wilder with your kids
- Use the boring, in-between bits of life as chances to switch on your heart and lungs
Those moments add up.
That’s the most important thing I tell every patient.
References
1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02100-x
2. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.05.25333017v2.full
3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12354995/
4. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2707428
