Is incidental activity the same as exercise?

“It’s ok, I’m pretty active in my day”.

This and other variations like: “I load my gear into my car pretty regularly”, “I run around after the kids”, “I mow the lawns every week” …. I commonly hear from patients in the clinic. Usually it is in response to the suggestion of fitting in some regular exercise, specifically strength or resistance exercise.

There is a misconception about incidental daily activity and its ability to help keep us strong, fit and healthy and I want to tackle it today. Now before I begin, I want to confirm that I absolutely believe in and advocate for having a alifestyle with lots of incidental activity and generally being active throughout your day! Incidental activity is great for overall health and wellbeing, but it generally does not directly contribute to building strength or cardiovascular fitness.

Incidental strenuous activity, such as lifting heavy objects occasionally or performing an intense physical task sporadically throughout the day, is not as beneficial for building strength as regular strength training or resistance training.

There are several reasons for this:

Lack of progressive overload:

Strength gains occur when we progressively overload our muscles over a period. Regular structured strength training workouts will typically involve gradually increasing the resistance or intensity of exercises to continually challenge your muscles.

Incidental activity typically doesn’t provide this progressive overload because it lacks consistency and control over the intensity and volume (total amount) of the exercise.

Specificity of training:

Strength gains are specific to the type of activity performed. I’ll give you a moment to read that again, so that it can really sink in... You get stronger and better at the things you do regularly.

Regular strength training allows you to target specific muscle groups and movements. A typical workout program is balanced so that you target all muscles of the body evenly and develop strength across all major muscle groups of the body. Incidental strenuous activity may engage various muscle groups but it often lacks the targeted approach necessary to optimise strength gains and it is rarely varied to ensure equal muscle growth and adaptation across the whole body.

In short, if you’re ‘getting strong’ from mowing the lawn, then chances are you’ll be strong at that and only that. If you’re getting strong with squats, push ups, deadlifts, overhead press, lunges, curls…. Then chances are you’re getting strong at LOTS of different activities.

Insufficient volume and frequency:

Building strength requires both sufficient volume (total amount) and frequency (how often you train) of exercise.

While incidental activities can provide brief bursts of physical exertion, they typically don’t accumulate enough volume or occur frequently enough to stimulate significant strength adaptations. Strength training programs on the other hand will deliver regular workouts of a similar volume and frequency every week. This leads to greater improvements in strength.

Correct technique and form:

Effective strength training requires good technique and form to maximise muscle engagement and minimise the risk of injury. Regular strength training allows you to focus on mastering these techniques under controlled conditions. You can direct your attention to your movement, the activation of key muscles and observe for any compensations. In contrast, incidental activities often occur spontaneously and can often involve suboptimal movement patterns, leading to an increased risk of injury, and can even reduce the effectiveness of the exercise.

Inadequate recovery:

Adequate rest and recovery are essential for muscle growth and strength development. Regular strength training programs typically include rest days and structured recovery strategies to optimise adaptation.

Incidental strenuous activity, especially if it occurs frequently without proper recovery can lead to overuse injuries and hinder progress. While injuries can occur during strength training (particularly if you are using poor form, technique or not aware of your body’s capacity limits) more frequently the injuries I see are most commonly from people doing something that they feel they are strong enough to do, but without adequate rest and recovery. A real life clinic example: A client came in with shoulder and upper back pain after cutting and stacking firewood for 2 days. Now while he was fairly strong and capable and historically has been able to do this task over 1 day, the two days in a row of the same type of activity resulted in a rib sprain and a strain to his rotator cuff.

The body needs time to recover in between tasks, as well as balanced load and movements in order to build strength and avoid overusing a particular muscle or joint.

For me, the last 2 reasons are super important for why you shouldn’t just keep ‘doing the incidental activity you’ve been doing’ as your rehab strategy when trying to recover from pain or an injury. Typically it is that activity that you’ve been doing that has caused or contributed to the injury. If you want to see a different result, then it makes sense that you shouldn’t continue to do what you’ve always done.

Hopefully this has helped you to better understand the role that incidental activity plays. It can be a great contributor to our overall physical fitness and calorie expenditure, but it is not as effective as regular strength or resistance training for building muscular strength, control and endurance.

To get a change in your muscular strength, improve your pain and re-build your body’s overall capacity it is essential to engage in some form of structured, progressive exercise tailored to your goals and abilities.