Exercise or Physical Activity?

 What really is the difference between Physical Activity and Exercise?

 

And how can we use Exercise and Physical Activity to improve our health and help us reach our goals?

First of all - Definitions! 

Physical Activity - Any movement created by the contraction of skeletal muscles. (This could be gardening, car cleaning or walking to work).

 

Exercise - Planned activity with the intent of improving an element of our health and fitness or performance. (This could be going for a run, going to the gym, or attending an exercise class).  

So, what does this mean?

 

in effect, any movement we make can be classed as Physical Activity, whether that is walking the dog or walking to the fridge. Walking to specifically improve our cardiovascular health is exercise. 

 

 

So, how do we use exercise and Physical Activity to improve our health?

Physical Activity can be done anywhere and at any time. Higher levels of Physical Activity have been shown to reduce our risks of Heart Disease, Stroke, Diabetes, some forms of Cancers, and Mental Health, alongside reducing our risks of falls and injuries. 

 

However, most people don't meet the minimum guidelines for Physical Activity. 

 

The government guidelines give a minimum amount of Physical Activity required to help reduce the above risks. 

 

Of course, exercise can be a simple way to meet the guidelines listed, however exercise is not the only way to meet these guidelines. 

Simply increasing our daily step count can minimise our sedentary time. Dancing around the kitchen can increase our moderate activity levels and improve balance. 

And how can we use exercise to get the most benefits from our Physical Activity?

 

One of the largest benefits of exercise are the adaptations our body makes to make exercise easier. Whether that is increasing our muscle efficiency or how our energy systems supply our muscles with energy. Increasing our muscle efficiency means it is easier for our muscles to contract, making us stronger and improving our endurance. It also means that our muscles will burn more calories when moving. 

Our energy systems work  on a continuum, depending on the exercise intensity. 

We have three main systems for providing energy -  using fats (long term energy), carbohydrates (short term energy) or creatine (very short term energy). As an example - Running a marathon would use mostly  fat energy, and have a minor contribution from carbohydrates and creatine. Opposingly, power lifting would rely mostly on the creatine system, and have a minor contribution from fats and carbohydrates. 

When we exercise at high intensities, such as HIIT training, we use mostly our carbohydrate energy system. Then, during recovery, our bodies improve our efficiency of using fats for energy. So, when walking may have been using 80% fat energy, it has improved to using 85% fat energy. The actual contributions and improvements will depend on a variety of factors, including individual differences, training styles and intensities. 

 

How to increase our Physical Activity benefits?

 

Firstly, by exercising we can increase the benefits of Physical Activity. 

 

But mainly, increasing our Physical Activity is our best way to reap the benefits. And it doesn't have to be hard. Some suggestions include:

 

• Walk instead of Driving, when possible (even parking further away from work).
• Cycle to work. 
• Taking the stairs instead of the lift. 
• Doing housework, car cleaning, gardening or DIY.
• Having a quick dance while cooking.
• Standing in the shower instead of sitting in the bath. 
• Having more active date nights (or meet ups), like climbing, swimming or hiking instead of a sit down dinner - although, if you love having dinner dates, you could do a take away picnic or do a restaurant crawl - have one course in one place, a second in another place (Plus side, if a restaurant does your favourite starter, but has terrible mains, you don't have to compromise). 

 

 

Let me know below your favourite ways of increasing your Physical Activity.