Three 1-Minute Bursts a Day: What the VILPA Studies Found

In a 2022 Nature Medicine study of 25,241 UK adults who said they did no exercise, people who had about 3 one-minute bursts of vigorous activity a day had a 39% lower risk of death over about 7 years than people with none. Because these people had reported doing no exercise, the researchers counted the bursts as part of daily life, such as fast walking or climbing stairs.

This guide covers what these bursts are, what three UK Biobank studies found, how strong the evidence is, and how to add short bursts to your own day.

What VILPA means

VILPA stands for vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity. The research team at the University of Sydney, led by Emmanuel Stamatakis, defines it as brief bouts of vigorous activity, up to 1 or 2 minutes long, done as part of daily living. Their examples include bursts of "very fast walking" while commuting or moving from place to place, and stair climbing.

The NHS says vigorous activity makes you breathe hard and fast, and at this level you will not be able to say more than a few words without pausing for breath. Its examples include walking up the stairs, riding a bike fast or on hills, and running.

To measure VILPA, more than 100,000 volunteers in UK Biobank, a large UK health study, wore a wrist accelerometer for 7 days between 2013 and 2015, and a validated machine-learning model classified the intensity of their movement. The VILPA analyses only included people who had reported no leisure-time exercise and no more than one recreational walk a week. In that group, 92.3% of the bursts lasted 1 minute or less.

The 2022 study: bursts and risk of death

The first study of VILPA and health outcomes was published in Nature Medicine in December 2022. It followed 25,241 non-exercisers with an average age of 61.8, of whom 56.2% were women, for an average of 6.9 years. There were 852 deaths: 266 from heart and circulatory disease and 511 from cancer.

The researchers adjusted for age, sex, smoking, alcohol, sleep, fruit and vegetable intake, education, medication, family history of heart disease and cancer, existing disease and other activity. Risk kept falling as the number of bursts rose, with the biggest drop over the first few bursts. Among people with any bursts, the median (middle value) was 3 one-minute bursts a day. The analysis capped the top of the range at 11.

The researchers defined the minimum dose as the amount linked to half of the largest risk reduction. For death from any cause, that was 1.5 one-minute bursts a day, linked to a 25% lower risk. The links were stronger for heart and circulatory disease: 1.4 bursts a day was linked to a 33% lower risk, and the median of 3 bursts to a 49% lower risk. For cancer death, the minimum dose of 1.5 bursts a day was linked to a 25% lower risk.

The study counted bursts and minutes separately. Among people with any bursts, the median daily total was about 4 minutes, and measured in minutes, the median was linked to a 27% lower risk of death from any cause. The 39% figure applies to the count of 3 bursts, not to 3 minutes a day. The team found similar links between vigorous activity and lower risk in 62,344 UK Biobank participants who did exercise.

Cancer and heart events

Two later papers from the same research group looked at new illness rather than death. A 2023 study in JAMA Oncology followed 22,398 non-exercisers for an average of 6.7 years, with 2,356 new cancers. Compared with no VILPA, the median of 4.5 minutes a day was linked to a 20% lower risk of any cancer, and a 31% lower risk of the 13 cancers linked to low activity. The minimum dose was around 3.4 minutes a day for any cancer, linked to a 17% lower risk.

A 2025 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine looked at heart attack, heart failure and stroke in 13,018 women and 9,350 men over 7.9 years. In women, the median of 3.4 minutes a day was linked to a 45% lower risk of any major heart event and a 67% lower risk of heart failure. The minimum dose, between 1.2 and 1.6 minutes a day depending on the outcome, was linked to a 30% lower risk of major heart events. In men, the links were weaker and less certain.

How strong the evidence is

All three UK Biobank studies are observational. People who move in vigorous bursts are likely to differ from people who do not in ways the researchers did not fully measure. In the 2022 study, people with no VILPA were older on average, at 64.7 compared with 59.7 in the group with the most bursts, and had a higher body mass index.

The authors wrote that they "cannot entirely rule out reverse causation", where poor health leads to less activity rather than the other way round. To reduce this, they excluded deaths in the first 2 years of follow-up. Leaving out people with poor self-rated health and adjusting for body mass index did not change the results much. Exercise habits were self-reported, on average 5.5 years before the accelerometer week, and the authors noted that some activities, such as carrying heavy shopping bags, "may not be perfectly captured" by wrist-worn devices.

Trials of short bursts are small. In a 2019 trial at McMaster University, led by Madison Jenkins, 24 inactive young adults were split into two groups of 12. One group climbed a 3-flight, 60-step stairwell vigorously 3 times a day, 3 days a week for 6 weeks, and the other did no training. Peak oxygen uptake, a measure of cardiorespiratory fitness, was higher in the stair climbers after the 6 weeks, though the authors described the absolute increase as modest. The trial tested young adults doing planned stair sessions, not the everyday bursts of the older UK Biobank participants.

A 2024 scoping review in Sports Medicine of 32 studies and trial records on exercise snacks found they were feasible and appeared safe in mostly inactive but otherwise healthy adults and older adults. The trial evidence showed modest gains in fitness, and effects on other health outcomes were unclear. The reviewers noted that most of the evidence came from a limited number of small studies.

How VILPA fits the NHS guidelines

The NHS advises adults to do at least 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week, plus strengthening activities on at least 2 days. It also advises breaking up long periods of not moving with some activity.

The VILPA studies did not test whether bursts replace the guideline. Three 1-minute bursts a day add up to about 21 minutes a week, well short of 75. In our view, short bursts are a practical starting point if you do no exercise now, and an addition rather than a replacement if you already train.

Ways to add short bursts to your day

These suggestions are ours, based on the activities named in the study and by the NHS. Aim for an effort where you say only a few words before pausing for breath, held for up to a minute.

Safety first

The NHS advises speaking to your GP first if you have not exercised for some time, or if you have medical conditions or concerns, and making sure the intensity of your activity is appropriate for your fitness. In our view, if you have heart disease, chest pain or high blood pressure, check with your GP before adding vigorous bursts, and stop and seek medical advice if you feel chest pain, faintness or unusual breathlessness.

Frequently asked questions

The bottom line

In UK Biobank adults who did no exercise, about 3 one-minute bursts of vigorous daily activity were linked to a 39% lower risk of death from any cause and a 49% lower risk of death from heart and circulatory disease. Later studies linked short bursts to lower cancer risk, and to fewer heart events in women. The evidence is observational and the trials are small. Climb stairs fast, walk fast for a minute, or ride hard up a hill, and check with your GP first if you have a medical condition.

Related reading

• •Stair climbing and heart disease risk
• •Exercise snacks and blood sugar
• •VO2 max and longevity
• •Is sitting too much bad for you

Sources

• •Stamatakis E, Ahmadi MN, Gill JMR, et al. Association of wearable device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity with mortality. Nature Medicine 2022. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36482104
• •Stamatakis E, Ahmadi MN, Friedenreich CM, et al. Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity and Cancer Incidence Among Nonexercising Adults: The UK Biobank Accelerometry Study. JAMA Oncology 2023. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37498576
• •Stamatakis E, Ahmadi M, Biswas RK, et al. Device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) and major adverse cardiovascular events: evidence of sex differences. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2025. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39467622
• •Jenkins EM, Nairn LN, Skelly LE, Little JP, Gibala MJ. Do stair climbing exercise "snacks" improve cardiorespiratory fitness? Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 2019. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30649897
• •Jones MD, Clifford BK, Stamatakis E, Gibbs MT. Exercise Snacks and Other Forms of Intermittent Physical Activity for Improving Health in Adults and Older Adults: A Scoping Review of Epidemiological, Experimental and Qualitative Studies. Sports Medicine 2024. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38190022
• •NHS. Physical activity guidelines for adults aged 19 to 64. nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/physical-activity-guidelines-for-adults-aged-19-to-64