Exercise Variety And All-Cause Mortality

The Study

The research literature consistently shows that exercise is important to our health but is variety of exercise important? A study published recently in the British Medical Journal attempted to find out.

Over 110,000 subjects from Harvard’s Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professional Follow-up Study had their exercise monitored and were followed for up to 34 years. An exercise variety score was created based on spending at least 20 minutes per week engaged in a wide variety of exercise.

The results were interesting:

-When comparing subjects with the highest exercise variety score to the lowest, there was a 19% lower risk of all-cause mortality.

-This benefit was independent of total physical activity. In other words, no matter how much total exercise you were getting, variety was associated with lower mortality.

doi:10.1136/bmjmed-2025-001513

Take Home Message

There appears to be a strong benefit to mixing up your exercise routine. Alternate different forms of cardio like walking or run-walking with gym equipment like elliptical trainers and Stair Masters. You can also build variety by trying different sports like tennis, ice skating, golf or skiing. 

Why is this important? The researchers in this investigation believe that there are distinct physiological effects from different physical activities. These include a variety of ventilatory responses, muscles used and different nerve pathways utilized. Therefore, each type of exercise has its own unique health benefits, so the more variety, the better.