Adults could meet global physical activity targets by walking inefficiently for just a few minutes each day, finds a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ.
Global rates of physical inactivity have not increased over the past 20 years, despite campaigns to increase physical activity and increase cardiovascular fitness in adults.
The inefficient walking styles of Mr Teabag and Mr Putey, played by John Cleese and Michael Palin in the 1971 Monty Python sketch Ministry of Silly Walks, have been shown to be more variable than regular walking, but their expenditure energy has never been measured.
To fill this vital research gap, a team of American researchers set out to compare the energy expenditure of low-efficiency walking with high-efficiency walking.
Their findings are based on data from 13 healthy adults (six women, seven men) aged 22 to 71 (mean age 34) with no history of heart or lung disease and no known gait disorder.
Height and body weight were measured and each participant was shown a video of the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch before completing three walking tests, each lasting five minutes, around an indoor course of 30 meters.
In the first test, participants walked in their usual style at a freely chosen pace. For the next two tests, participants were asked to recreate, to the best of their ability, the walks of Mr. Teabag and Mr. Putey that they had seen in the video.
The distance traveled during the five minutes of walking was used to calculate the average speed. Oxygen intake (mL/kg/min), energy expenditure (kcal/kg/min) and exercise intensity (METs) – the amount of calories expended per minute of physical activity – were also measured. .
The researchers found that tea bag walking alone resulted in a significantly higher energy expenditure, about 2.5 times that of regular walking.
For men and women combined, oxygen uptake during the normal walk was 11.3 ml/kg/min (or 3.2 METs), which was similar to that of the Putey walk (12.3 ml/kg/min or 3.5 MET). However, the Teabag walk resulted in an oxygen uptake of 27.9 mL/kg/min, or 8 METs, which qualifies as vigorous intensity exercise.
In terms of energy expenditure, exchanging just one minute of regular walking for one minute of tea bag walking was associated with an increase in energy expenditure of 8 kcal/min for men and 5 kcal/min for men for women
Researchers estimate that adults could achieve 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity per week by walking tea-bag style, rather than their usual style, for about 11 minutes a day. And replacing regular strides with Teabag style strides for about 12-19 min/day would increase daily energy expenditure by approximately 100 kcal.
This amount of teabag-style walking would likely increase cardiorespiratory fitness, reduce mortality risk, and require no additional time commitment because it replaces the movement adults already do with more vigorous physical activity, they add.
This is an experimental study based on a small sample, and the researchers acknowledge that some people, including people with disabilities, gait disorders, joint disease or other health conditions, may not be able to complete the Putey or Teabag Walks . “But otherwise they could increase energy expenditure in their daily movements, with inefficiency as a goal,” they say.
They also note that bursts of physical activity of as little as one or two minutes, accumulated over time, can produce cardiovascular benefits, so people could engage in regular bursts of inefficient walking, at times and places more convenient for them, including inside.
“Our analysis of energy expended during different walking styles aims to empower people to move their own bodies in more energetic and, hopefully, joyful ways,” they write. “Efforts to increase cardiovascular fitness should incorporate inclusion and inefficiency for all.”
Source:
Journal reference:
Gaesser, GA, et al. (2022) Quantifying the benefits of inefficient walking: a lab-based experimental study inspired by Monty Python. The BMJ. doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-072833.