Is exercise enough if you sit a lot?
No. Modern environments don't just reduce how much we move. They also remove movement from everyday activities.
Movement hygiene is what I call the everyday habits that give the body movement without separate exercise. They bring movement back into the things we already do.
Written by Matti Melanen, Paljasjalka Fysio, physiotherapist and TFC Pro
See barefoot shoes.
Movement hygiene in my everyday life
I spend a lot of time on the floor. I sometimes work sitting or squatting, and the squat comes naturally to me in other everyday tasks too.
I walk a lot barefoot or in barefoot shoes. In fact, I don't own any conventional shoes at all.
None of this is training. These are ways of doing things I do anyway. That's what movement hygiene is about.
So why do we need habits like these? The answer lies in how the human body evolved.
What is evolutionary mismatch?
It means the human body evolved for one kind of environment and now lives in a radically different one.
Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, studies how the human body evolved and what happens when that body encounters the modern environment.
He describes evolutionary mismatches through three categories: too much, too little and too novel.
I've been thinking especially about the "too little" category in relation to movement.
How do modern environments remove movement from everyday life?
They do the body's work for it.
We usually see the modern movement problem as a lack of exercise.
But modern environments don't just reduce how much we move. They also remove movement from everyday activities.
Chairs replace squatting and other resting postures close to the ground. Elevators remove stair climbing and other forms of climbing from everyday life. Flat surfaces reduce variability. Conventional shoes reduce movement within the foot while we walk.
What do the Hadza do when they rest?
They often rest sitting on the ground, in a deep squat or kneeling.
Researchers found that the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania spend around 10 hours a day resting, roughly the same amount of time that people in industrialized societies spend sitting or lying still.
The difference is in how they use their bodies at rest. The Hadza spend a lot of time sitting on the ground, squatting or kneeling, which keeps more lower-limb muscle activity going than sitting in a chair (Raichlen et al. 2020).
This matters, because even low levels of muscle activity keep the body working during rest.
Muscles use energy and maintain metabolic activity, joints receive movement and varied loading, and tissues receive the mechanical stimuli they need to function.
The researchers therefore suggest that perhaps the problem isn't only how much time we spend still, but how still our bodies are during that time.
Is physical inactivity the same as being sedentary?
No. Physical inactivity means not meeting the physical activity guidelines. Being sedentary means repeatedly sitting or lying down for long periods.
You can meet the guidelines and still spend most of your day sedentary: go to the gym five times a week and sit for the rest of the day in a chair, in the car and on the sofa.
The Hadza are an example from the other direction. They rest as much as we do, but their bodies keep working even at rest. A step counter can't see this difference.
Meeting the physical activity guidelines doesn't remove the harms of being sedentary.
Is meeting the physical activity guidelines enough?
No. The adult guidelines from the World Health Organization and Finland's UKK Institute call for at least 2.5 hours of brisk or 1 hour 15 minutes of vigorous physical activity a week, plus muscle strengthening at least twice a week.
Brisk activity works out to about 20 minutes a day. For the rest of the time, your body does what everyday life asks of it.
The guidelines know this themselves. The UKK Institute's recommendation advises breaking up sedentary time whenever you can and moving lightly as often as possible. The World Health Organization, for its part, states that to reduce the harms of a lot of sedentary time, adults should aim to do more than the recommended amount.
Why doesn't more exercise fix being sedentary?
Because your body adapts to what it does most.
An hour of training doesn't cancel out fifteen hours in a chair, in the car and on the sofa. Training trains exactly what you do in it. Gym training doesn't turn the deep squat into a resting position or bring back the hip extension your chair takes away every day.
You get what you order.
The same goes for shoes. When you walk and run in conventional shoes with a raised heel, a cushioned sole and a narrow toe box, your foot barely moves.
There's no bigger paradox than heading out for a run in shoes that keep your feet from properly doing what you're going out to do. You'll still get the health benefits of exercise, but at the same time you're wearing away the very things that make walking and running comfortable and effortless.
Being sedentary isn't just a lack of exercise, either. The body responds to it in its own way.
When people replaced six hours of sitting with walking and standing for four days, their metabolism worked better than when they sat and did an hour of cycling, even though they used the same amount of energy (Duvivier et al. 2013).
What is movement hygiene?
Movement hygiene is the everyday habits and conditions that give the body movement, varied loading and different postures without separate exercise.
Just as we brush our teeth every day, we could make sure our bodies regularly go through the movements they need.
Exercise and movement are different things. Exercise means practising a particular sport or activity, such as gym training, yoga, football, ice hockey, karate or social dancing. Each one repeats its own movement patterns.
Movement, on the other hand, is everything your body does and experiences, during your workout and outside it.
That's why a sport doesn't replace movement. At the gym you lift and push, but your feet stand on a flat floor in supportive shoes. An ice hockey player skates and shoots, but their feet are in a stiff skate the whole time. Someone doing yoga reaches and stretches, but doesn't run or jump.
Your body may need exactly what your sport doesn't do.
How do you bring movement back into everyday life?
By finding movement in the things you already do.
Movement hygiene shouldn't become yet another exercise routine, something extra you need to remember to do.
A deep squat can be a resting position. Stairs can be how you move between floors. The floor can be a place where you sit or work.
And barefoot shoes can let your feet move more freely during the thousands of steps you take anyway.
Perhaps the problem with modern life isn't only too little exercise, but too little movement as part of everyday life.
Finally
Exercise is a good thing, but on its own it doesn't replace the movement the modern environment has gradually removed from everyday life.
Once you notice this, you can make small changes to your everyday life. You do the same things as before, but your body gets more movement while doing them. That's when movement hygiene happens on its own.
Let's keep moving!
Frequently asked questions
Is exercise enough if you sit a lot?
No. Exercise is a good start, but modern environments also remove movement from everyday activities. By making small changes to your everyday life, you can give your body movement even when you're not exercising.
Is physical inactivity the same as being sedentary?
No. Physical inactivity means not meeting the physical activity guidelines. Being sedentary means repeatedly sitting or lying down for long periods. Meeting the guidelines doesn't remove the harms of being sedentary.
Is meeting the physical activity guidelines enough?
No. The recommended amount of brisk activity works out to about 20 minutes a day. That's why the guidelines also advise breaking up sedentary time and moving lightly as often as possible.
What does movement hygiene mean?
Everyday habits and conditions that give the body movement and different postures without separate exercise.
What is evolutionary mismatch?
It means the body evolved for a different environment from the one we live in now. Daniel Lieberman divides mismatches into three: too much, too little and too novel.
How can you add movement to everyday life?
By doing ordinary things a little differently: resting in a squat now and then, sitting on the floor, taking the stairs and walking barefoot or in barefoot shoes.
Sources
- Duvivier BMFM, Schaper NC, Bremers MA, van Crombrugge G, Menheere PPCA, Kars M, Savelberg HHCM (2013). Minimal intensity physical activity (standing and walking) of longer duration improves insulin action and plasma lipids more than shorter periods of moderate to vigorous exercise (cycling) in sedentary subjects when energy expenditure is comparable. PLoS One 8(2):e55542. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055542
- Lieberman DE (2013). The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease. New York: Pantheon Books.
- Raichlen DA, Pontzer H, Zderic TW, Harris JA, Mabulla AZP, Hamilton MT, Wood BM (2020). Sitting, squatting, and the evolutionary biology of human inactivity. PNAS 117(13):7115–7121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911868117
- UKK Institute (2019). Physical activity recommendation for adults aged 18–64 (in Finnish: Liikkumalla terveyttä, askel kerrallaan). https://ukkinstituutti.fi/liikkuminen/liikkumisen-suositukset/aikuisten-liikkumisen-suositus/
- World Health Organization (2020). WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Geneva: WHO. ISBN 978-92-4-001512-8. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240015128