A paper published recently in the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal has gone viral.
The slow, high-legged, three-step, two-step back Walk comes from a 1971 comedy, “The Ministry of Silly Walks,” which has been re-dissected by Renaissance scientists and named the “Teabag Walk” after the character.
According to research, “teabag walking” for about 10 minutes a day has the same effect on fitness, weight loss and longevity as 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week.
Scientists also say that if the walk had been introduced earlier, we might now be living in a healthier society.
Why are scientists so optimistic about ‘teabagging’?
The research team asked 13 men and women aged 22 to 71 to take the test. After recording their height and weight, the volunteers were asked to walk around an indoor field about 30 meters long in three different positions for five minutes at a time. The three types of walking were: normal walking; Teabags go; Go Pootie.
Throughout the session, the volunteers wore portable metabolic measuring devices that recorded their oxygen intake, energy expenditure and exercise intensity. To avoid compromising the results, the researchers stopped recording the laughter immediately after the volunteers laughed.
The results showed that of the three walks, only the tea bag walk had the highest energy expenditure, about two and a half times that of a normal walk.
One minute of teabag walking increased energy expenditure by 8kcal per minute for men and 5kcal per minute for women. In other words, as long as the “tea bag walking” instead of normal walking, only about 12 to 19 minutes a day, can increase energy consumption of about 100 kcal, achieve good weight loss effect.
The researchers noted that the heavier the person, the more energy they expended during the teabag walk, and the greater the weight loss.
In addition, the intensity of the teabag walk exercise was about 8 MET, which is equivalent to vigorous exercise. It has been estimated that adults could easily achieve the “75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week” feat of just 11 minutes of teabag walking a day.
Because it takes in far more oxygen than the other two walks, researchers believe the tea bag walk can improve heart and lung function, greatly improve cardiovascular health, and may help reduce the risk of death.
The paper concludes by pointing out that these 11 minutes don’t even need to be done all at once. It can be divided into several times a day, each time for 1-2 minutes, the cumulative effect is the same. That is to say, people can choose their own convenient time and place to practice quietly, even not thick skinned “social terrorism”, or busy “workers” can easily practice.
What, are you ready to try?
By the way, you might wonder why the characters, such as Teabags and Puttie, are so estranged.
In fact, the film was made to mock the unpragmatism of the British departments of the time. The members of the “Silly Step Department” in the film, whose job was to walk in various strange positions, were not stupid or incompetent.
