For years we have had a daily goal burned into our minds and also on the activity bracelets we have on our wrists: take 10,000 steps a day. A mantra that doctors have repeated, like the intake of two liters of water a daybut little by little it is pivoting to a completely different approach, since it does not depend on how much we move, but on how we do it.
A paradigm shift. Expert Rhonda Patrick already pointed out Because as a society we should consider changing the goal of 10,000 steps in our daily lives to give way to a new concept that is revolutionizing preventive medicine, which is VILPA, which is the acronym for ‘Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity’ in English.
This refers to doing small bursts of exercise of one or two minutes on a daily basis and which can be done several times a day. Something that is very simple, and although it may seem like it may have a harmless result in patients, the results point to the opposite.
Its importance. To see if this works or not, we can go to the data extracted from the large groups of UK Biobank patients already a study published in 2022 which analyzed more than 25,000 people. Here it was seen that only 3 to 4 minutes of VILPA daily with bursts of just 1-2 minutes is associated with a 26-30% reduction in total mortality and specifically from cancer.
But if we go further, we also observe a reduction of between 32% and 34% in cardiovascular mortality. However, the most relevant thing is that the benefits increase almost linearly the more minutes of vigorous activity you accumulate.
Better than being sedentary. If we look at the most recent studies, such as published by The Lancent This year with more than 135,000 participants, it was confirmed that going from doing nothing to adding just between 1 and 6 minutes of vigorous exercise reduces mortality by 30% in the most sedentary people. The conclusion here is quite clear because we have a great performance investing very little time in the sport.
It’s not all at once. One of the big doubts we have is whether those 10 minutes we are talking about have to be done in one go or if it is worth running a little to catch the bus. Here studies suggest that the way you do it does not matter as much as the total dose of exercise.
This means that taking small exercise pills throughout the day offers the same benefits as doing them in one continuous session at the gym. This is great news for those who do not have time to go to a gym to train, since climbing the stairs quickly or carrying heavy bags counts, a lot.
Rejuvenate the heart. One of the methods we have available to better structure the intensity of training It’s in the ‘Norwegian 4×4’. A protocol developed by different researchers that advocates applying four four-minute intervals of very high intensity along with three minutes of moderate active recovery between each block.
With this simple regimen, the heart can be ‘rejuvenated’, causing the left ventricle to reverse its morphological changes and also improving the maximum volume of oxygen in patients with heart failure. That is why we have a much more efficient heart.
You have to walk. Obviously, taking 10,000 steps a day is not stupid, and we must continue taking walking as an excellent habit for metabolic and joint health. However, the “10 minutes of intensity” figure supported by VILPA studies reveals an uncomfortable truth: walking at a walking pace does not replace the physiological benefit of being short of breath. As studies in huge cohorts show, introducing just a few minutes where your heart works at its maximum generates a great benefit in health and longevity compared to simple step volume.
Images | Ingo Jakubke
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