Stop-start exercising It may be good for you, but can this strategy work for me - and my dog?

Let me start by saying that I am not looking for ways to be more tired. I'm tired enough. However, a new study suggesting that exercise punctuated by frequent breaks requires more energy than "steady-state" exertion has a certain counterintuitive attraction: I can exercise better by resting more.

- Tim Dowling

The results of the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, are striking. Volunteers on treadmills and stair climbers used 60% more oxygen when walking in bursts of 10 to 30 seconds than they did covering the same distance without stopping.

This apparently has something to do with the sheer inefficiency of stop-start activity.

Francesco Luciano, the study's author, said: "We found that when starting from rest, a significant amount of oxygen is consumed to start walking.

"We incur this cost regardless of whether we then walk for 10 or 30 seconds, so it proportionally weighs more for shorter rather than longer bouts.”

Would this strategy, I wondered, work for me? I began my investigation with an everyday journey: a walk to the nearest Post Office, just over half a mile away.

On the way I walked at a brisk, unbroken pace, but on the return journey I covered the same distance in micro-bursts of 30 seconds, with rests in between.