“Fitness snacking” or “workout snacking”? It’s not about combining chips, squats, and cookies in an unusual circuit training session, but rather a full fitness practice aimed at giving yourself the healthiest possible “snack.”
Fitness snacking is THE solution for people who can’t find time to exercise and want to fight the sedentary lifestyle. Even better, fitness snacking’s also ideal for those who see physical activity as a core part of their day, or simply want to increase their activity level throughout their day.
This method involves doing short sessions of physical activity whenever you want during your day and according to your own schedule, in order to benefit from all the advantages of a complete workout.
The idea is to find ways to stay active throughout the day and move your body to improve both physical and mental well-being while adapting to all lifestyles.
It can be as simple as repeatedly climbing five flights of stairs, doing a five-minute stretching session, performing a few sets of push-ups or pull-ups to build strength, or doing a bit of core training between two phone calls.
The main benefit is that by spreading short moments of activity throughout the day, these fitness snacks provide many health benefits and can add up to about 30 to 60 minutes of exercise per day.
More or less intense, with or without equipment, sometimes cardio and sometimes strength training, the key principle’s simple: move. This lets you quietly accumulate minutes of exercise without even realising it, and hit the recommended 150 minutes of physical activity per week.
The biggest advantage of fitness snacking is its practicality. You can accumulate enough time of moderate or intense effort to replace a long workout session that would take up too much space in your schedule.
For many people, short mini-workouts are easier to commit to, helping them maintain a regular fitness routine over the long term. Those who adopt this approach often enjoy each session, completing them without needing to change into sportswear.
This method is also a great way to get back into sports when the idea of starting a one-hour workout just doesn’t appeal.
Depending on your profile, short periods of physical activity spread across several sessions can be just as effective as single concentrated workouts in terms of physical benefits, weight loss, aerobic fitness, reduced stress, and lower mortality risk.
Finally, for more experienced athletes, small bursts of activity throughout the day can be a useful way to gradually increase your training load over time and recover better through low-intensity movement.
These small exercise breaks are very effective and make it easy to reach your daily or weekly physical activity quota (at least 30 to 45 minutes per day!) without exhausting yourself, in a fun way, while staying active. Prefer these breaks to cigarette breaks or chocolate bars… They’re shorter and better for your health! 😉
In the end, what really matters for achieving positive results is building a real habit that fits your preferences and your goals.
Instead of planning a long workout session, break your fitness routine into several small modules throughout your day. Take stock of the breaks you have available (5, 10, 15 minutes) and assign a short workout to each one. For example:
Or even go further by choosing:
The possibilities are endless, and it doesn’t require any special physical ability or equipment.
You can fit your sessions in whenever it works best for you: wake up, after meals, during your coffee break at work (don’t forget the Work program!), when you get home in the evening, after dinner, or before going to bed…
During all these available time gaps, you should see the perfect opportunity to move. The most important thing is to find your own rhythm.
As a bonus, consider using the Builder, the workout creation tool in your FizzUp app, if you feel creative 🙂.
Days are limited. You may work long hours, travel long distances, or have many responsibilities to manage.
If you feel that you can’t fit a regular exercise routine into your daily schedule, don’t give up. There’s an option you may not have explored: the Snacking program by FizzUp.
The Snacking workout program, which requires no equipment, will get you moving in short bursts of a few minutes and maximise the health benefits of exercise. In this program, you’ll be given different activity blocks to spread throughout the day. Each exercise is adapted to your level to match your profile, and they can be performed in any situation. Depending on your schedule, you only need to follow the coach’s recommendations, which are ultra short and highly effective.
Here’s an example of a day in the program:
Every day, these 6 unique training blocks are suggested to you: sometimes strength training, sometimes abs, sometimes stretching… Everything adds up to form a complete workout over time. You can choose which recommendations to follow, as they’re, of course, not all mandatory.
Take part in the healthiest form of activity snacking and structure exercise into your day with the Snacking program, exclusively available in your app or on the web.
Join the 7 million users already registered on FizzUp
Join us