Are habitual runners physically inactive?

ABSTRACT

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) physical activity guidelines recommend 150min/week of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) accumulated in 10 min bouts. To see whether people performing habitual exercise for recreation meet these guidelines, 25 long-distance runners [mean 67 km/wk], 25 joggers [mean 28 km/wk], and 20 sedentary adults wore an ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometer for 7 days. Sedentary time and bouts were similar in runners and sedentary adults (p > 0.46). Sedentary adults performed 20 ± 16 min/day of MVPA (usual bout duration (W50%): 9.53 ± 3.45min), with joggers and runners performing 45 ± 31min (W50%: 16.92 ± 9.53min) and 83 ± 58min (W50%: 20.35 ± 8.85min), respectively (p ≤ 0.001 versus sedentary group). Data showed that 65% of the sedentary group, 32% of joggers and 4% of long-distance runners did not meet the WHO guideline for MVPA. Failure to meet the guideline was most prominent in, but not restricted to, runners who reported ≤50km running per week. Self-reported running does not ensure adults meet physical activity guidelines or offset daily sedentary behaviours. On the other hand, the sedentary group was very close in accumulating recommended bouts of MVPA in incidental activities. Future studies should assess whether modification of work and leisure physical activity would be more fruitful than encouraging recreational exercise per se in meeting physical activity guidelines.

KEYWORDS:

• Accelerometry
• moderate-to-vigorous physical activity
• sedentary behaviour
• leisure time physical activity
• physical activity guidelines

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the participants who volunteers for the study and also Ms Kelsey Hibberd for assistance in data processing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions

• Rantalainen: Conception and design of experiments, assisted in data collection, data analysis, drafting of manuscript, approved final version of the manuscript.

• Pesola: Data analysis, drafting of manuscript, approved final version of the manuscript.

• Quittner: Data collection, approved final version of the manuscript.

• Ridgers: Conception and design of experiments, data analysis, revision of manuscript, approved final version of the manuscript.

• Belavy: Conception and design of experiments, secured funding, assisted in data collection, revision of manuscript, approved final version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University (Grant ID: Belavy 2014-2017).