No, this isn’t clickbait…but instead a very interesting phenomenon described best in contrast. Exercise resistance is an inhibition of the benefits of exercise, like energy use, because of the compensation by inactivity.

In the world of exercise, we’ve long touted the benefits of regular physical activity, specifically a structured workout. But you may also have read, or experienced for yourself, how these traditional workouts by themselves, are not the magic bullet to a healthy life. Turns out, a workout isn’t enough. Our bodies are so good at maintaining homeostasis that even the benefits a 60 minute run can be compensated for by a lack of movement the rest of the time. In other words, if you spend your day sitting after your hour spin class or treadmill run, you may not be gaining all you thought.

Of course this isn’t to say exercise is worthless. Quite the contrary. In fact, the premise of this information is to spur on even more activity. Not only do we desperately need a great workout, we also need to be moving throughout the day. We need motion. And this movement needn’t be strenuous; only the opposite of sedentary.

In a small but important recent study , researchers determined to find how well subjects metabolized a high fat meal following an exercise session within the context of how much they walked outside of their workouts.

Two days of step reduction to approximately 2500–5000 steps per day in young healthy individuals impairs the ability of an acute bout of exercise to increase fat oxidation and attenuate postprandial increases in plasma triglycerides. This suggests that “exercise resistance” occurs in individuals taking approximately 5000 or fewer steps per day, whereas 8500 steps per day protects against exercise resistance in fat metabolism. It seems that fat metabolism is influenced more by the inhibitory effects of inactivity than by the stimulating effects derived from 1 h of moderate-intensity running.

None of this should really be any surprise to us as we intuitively know that moving makes a big difference in our fitness. We know long periods of sitting feels bad; we’re cranky, stiff, hungry, our pants don’t fit, and generally put off. And although moving isn’t the panacea to every health issue, it goes a very long way toward preventing heart disease and other lifestyle related chronic illness.

In closing (as if we need one more reason to commit to improving our health), making movement part of your day doesn’t have to be hard. But if you’re not doing it, all those great workouts you’ve been counting on to keep you fit won’t be the solution you’ve been looking for either.