You often hear the terms “exercise” and physical activity used interchangeably. But are they the same? Both physical activity and exercise involve movement and the use of energy, but they differ in several ways. First, let’s look at physical activity, what it means, and how it differs from exercise. Then we’ll look more closely at structured exercise.
What is Physical Activity?
Physical activity is any movement you make that uses energy. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines physical activity as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure. Physical activity is not just structured exercise. It comprises the movement you do throughout the day that expends energy.
Examples of physical activity include walking, running, cycling, swimming, house cleaning, moving furniture, mowing the lawn, etc. So, physical activities are all activities that require muscle movement and energy, regardless of the type or length of that activity. Physical activity is woven into the fabric of human existence. They are the movements you do every day.
Still, many people don’t get enough physical activity because they sit too much. If you spend most of your workday sitting at a computer, you’re in good company. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accountants spend 90% of their day sitting, while carpenters sit only 6% of their day. The more sedentary the job is, the more likely it is that physical activity is lacking in a person’s life.
How Exercise Differs from Physical Activity
Exercise differs from physical activity in that it’s structured and intentional. When you launch into a workout to get exercise, you typically plan your workout, the exercises you will do, and the length of time you will do them. You may also have a blueprint to follow to ensure you’re meeting your fitness goals. You might even wear a fitness tracker or a heart rate monitor. Exercise is a purposeful activity that focuses on achieving certain health and fitness goals.
So, now you know the difference. All activity involves muscle contractions and energy expenditure, but exercise is structured and directed toward achieving a fitness goal, such as improving cardiovascular health, building muscle, or improving the sense of well-being. Exercise is also planned and defined by a specific time interval. For example, you might decide to weight train for 45 minutes or run for 30 minutes, while physical activity may be open ended and fragmented. Exercise can also have a substructure. When you do an interval workout, for example, you exercise at a high intensity for a set amount of time and recover for a specific period and keep repeating for a specified period until your workout is complete.
There are gray areas where exercise and physical activity overlap. For example, working in a garden where you’re lifting heavy items, digging, and squatting works some of the same muscles that strength-training sessions work. Likewise, walking up a flight of stairs boosts your heart rate like aerobic exercise, but you don’t do those things specifically to improve your health and fitness. They’re woven into your daily life and not related to specific fitness goals. One term people sometimes use for unstructured physical activity is incidental exercise.
Does Unstructured Physical Activity Have Health and Fitness Benefits?
It’s clear that exercise has benefits but what about physical activity? The American Heart Association recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise per week or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise for cardiovascular health benefits in healthy adults.
They point out that you can break exercise into 10-minute chunks spread throughout the week instead of one long session daily. For example, you could do a 10-minute high-intensity interval session 3 times a day and still get a 30-minute workout. One advantage of doing short bursts of exercise is it breaks up periods of sitting, another risk factor for health problems and increased mortality.
For people who won’t do structured exercise, physical activity offers some benefits, and the benefits increase with the amount of time you’re physically active. For example, a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine divided healthy adults into two groups. Over two weeks, the researchers asked one group to climb three flights of stairs every 4 hours for 3 days each week. The other group remained inactive. The results were encouraging. Those who climbed stairs showed improvement in their cardiovascular fitness without changing anything else.
Compared to sitting in a chair, any activity improves how your cells handle glucose, leading to better insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control. As studies show, being physically inactive is associated with a higher risk of coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, and a shorter lifespan. Regardless of how physically active you are, it’s important to do a structured strength-training workout to reduce the loss of muscle strength and mass that occurs because of aging. Strength training also reduces bone loss.
The Bottom Line
Exercise and physical activity are not the same but go hand in hand. Exercise is a subset of planned, structured, repetitive, and purposeful physical activity in the sense that an individual or group does it to improve or maintain their health. However, physical activity or incidental exercise also has benefits. When you’re physically active in any capacity, you’re not sitting. So, aim to do both!
References:
- Hoare E, Stavreski B, Jennings GL, Kingwell BA. Exploring Motivation and Barriers to Physical Activity among Active and Inactive Australian Adults. Sports (Basel). 2017 Jun 28;5(3):47. doi: 10.3390/sports5030047. PMID: 29910407; PMCID: PMC5968958.
- Craft LL, Zderic TW, Gapstur SM, Vaniterson EH, Thomas DM, Siddique J, Hamilton MT. Evidence that women meeting physical activity guidelines do not sit less: an observational inclinometry study. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2012 Oct 4;9:122. doi: 10.1186/1479-5868-9-122. PMID: 23034100; PMCID: PMC3490758.
- Stamatakis, E., Johnson, N., Powell, L., Hamer, M., Rangul, V. and Holtermann, A. (2019). Short and sporadic bouts in the 2018 US physical activity guidelines: is high-intensity incidental physical activity the new HIIT?. British Journal of Sports Medicine, pp.bjsports-2018-100397.
- “FastStats – Exercise or Physical Activity.” .cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/exercise.htm.
- World Health Organization. “Physical Activity”
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Sitting and standing”
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