Athletes aren’t immune to the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle.
Long-periods of inactivity isn’t a great idea, even if you train daily.
Physically muscles start to stiffen, and psychologically you feel sluggish.
Exercise “snacks” can be a great antidote.
Particularly for those who (like me) find the 10,000-step count goal boring, or unrealistic.
An exercise snack can be defined as “A very short exercise session that can be done at anytime in nearly any place.”
There’s plenty of research on exercise snacks of <1min-bouts leading to improvements in cardiometabolic health and reducing the negative impact of sedentary behaviour in the general population (Jenkins et al., 2019; Rafeili et al., 2021; Little et al., 2019).
They’re starting to gain great traction with Andrew Huberman being a proponent:
However, for athletes, they can provide a great form of GPP, recovery, weak point targeting, and FUN.
A great example is freak athlete Tom Havilland (pictured), who includes an “odd lift of the day” as part of his training regime.
Here are exercise “snack” ideas to inspire you:
- Loaded Carry (1set to failure) i.e., suitcase, log, girlfriend, whatever
- Max isometric hold (1set to failure) i.e., split squat, hang from chin-up bar
- Bodyweight AMRAP (1set to failure) i.e., push-ups, chin-ups, Bulgarian split squat
- Myorep Pump (1 cluster set) i.e., biceps curls, calf raises, lateral raises
- Conditioning Intervals i., 20sec on/20sec off stair sprints or burpees x 1-3sets
Most importantly – keep them random and fun.
Do these when you feel excited to do them or want to break up working on your laptop (I did a set of L-sits whilst writing this article).
