Doing the same workout on repeat might not be the best play.
Research published in the open access journal BMJ Medicine suggests regularly doing a range of physical activities could be one of the most effective ways to extend lifespan, and that the gains from exercise do not keep rising indefinitely.
The findings came from two long-running studies, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, which tracked participants for more than 30 years and updated information on lifestyle, health history and exercise habits every two years through questionnaires.
Researchers analysed data from 111,467 participants for total physical activity and 111,373 participants for activity variety.
The Nurses’ Health Study included 121,700 women and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study included 51,529 men.
Participants reported activities including walking, jogging, running, cycling, lap swimming, rowing or callisthenics, tennis and squash or racquetball. Later surveys also included weight training or resistance exercise, lower intensity exercise such as yoga, stretching and toning, vigorous tasks such as lawn mowing, moderate outdoor work such as maintenance and gardening, and heavy outdoor work such as digging and chopping.
Participants also reported how many flights of stairs they climbed each day, based on an estimate that each flight takes 8 seconds to ascend.
Over more than three decades of follow-up, 38,847 participants died, including 9,901 from cardiovascular disease, 10,719 from cancer, and 3,159 from respiratory disease.
Higher levels of physical activity, along with most individual types of exercise except swimming, were linked to a lower risk of death from any cause.
But the link was not linear. The benefits of total activity appeared to level off after about 20 weekly MET hours, suggesting an optimal amount of activity.
Walking had one of the strongest links. People who walked the most had a 17 percent lower risk of death than those who walked the least.
Climbing stairs was linked to a 10 percent lower risk of death.
Tennis, squash or racquetball were linked to a 15 percent lower risk. Rowing or callisthenics were linked to a 14 percent lower risk. Weight training or resistance exercise and running were each linked to a 13 percent lower risk. Jogging was linked to an 11 percent lower risk, while cycling was linked to a 4 percent lower risk.
The researchers also found variety mattered.
After accounting for total exercise levels, participants who did the widest range of activities had a 19 percent lower risk of death from all causes than those who did fewer types of activity.
They also had a 13 to 41 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease and other causes.
The researchers said staying active overall still matters, but people who took part in different types of physical activity tended to have a lower risk of death regardless of how much total exercise they did.
The study was observational, so it cannot prove cause and effect.
The researchers said physical activity was self-reported rather than directly measured, which may affect accuracy. They also said MET scores assumed participants were fully engaged in each activity, and that limited detail on intensity could have led to some misclassification of energy use. The study population was also mostly White, which may limit how widely the findings apply.
“Overall, these data support the notion that long term engagement in multiple types of physical activity may help extend the lifespan.”
Read more from Science Daily.
