Doing more types of exercise, not just more exercise, could help you live longer

We've long known that regular physical activity reduces the risk of premature death, but a large prospective study in BMJ Medicine adds an important nuance: variety matters independently of how much you exercise overall.

Following over 111,000 participants from the Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study for up to 34 years, researchers found that people who consistently engaged in the widest range of physical activities had 19% lower all-cause mortality compared to those with the least variety, even after controlling for total activity volume, with benefits extending across cardiovascular disease, cancer, and respiratory disease.

This resonates with what I counseled patients throughout my clinical career: mixing different types of movement keeps you from burning out on any single activity, and it ensures you're stimulating different physiological systems, cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, flexibility, and coordination, rather than repeatedly stressing the same pathways.

Walking, running, tennis, weight training, rowing, stair climbing, and cycling all showed benefits; swimming was the exception, likely because self-reported duration poorly captures actual intensity. If your current routine leans heavily on one activity, consider this good motivation to branch out. The benefits of movement compound when you diversify.

2 comments