Physical activity decreased significantly during confinement in all the population where vigorous and walking activities declined the most and moderate activities barely changed. There were more inactive people who failed to fulfil the 75 min/week of vigorous activities during lockdown, and sedentary time also increased considerably. The impact on active and sedentary behaviour was particularly high in men, young people, students and the physically very active population.
To our knowledge, there are no previous studies that have analysed the effect of confinement caused by a pandemic on physical activity. Thus, it is difficult to assess whether the population we studied has reduced the amount of physical activity to a smaller or larger extent. The only available data we found about physical activity during confinement comes from an activity tracker, where it has been shown that in Europe the country with the greatest step count decrease recorded was Spain, with 38% less, followed by Italy with 25%. This reduction is similar to the falling trend in walking time shown in our study. In this regard, other studies carried out in similar lockdown situations (confinement during seasons with adverse weather conditions – cold winter or heat waves) also reported physical activity decrease during confinement, whereas sedentary time increases because poor or extreme weather becomes an environmental barrier to going outdoors (13–16).
Sedentary time increased considerably, most likely due to the exchange between common daily active behaviour (walking, cycling or transport to work, etc.) and the prolonged stay at home. Young people and students spend more time seated during confinement and this may be due to the forced e-learning which encourages sedentary behaviour related to excessive time in screen-based activities (17). Likewise, according to the socio-ecological model (9), in a comparable framework where social or environmental barriers promote an inactive lifestyle (social isolation, loneliness and, when season changes) have been reported more sedentary behaviour and less time being spent on light, moderate and vigorous physical activities (18–20). Hence, an involuntary prolonged stay at home may encourage sedentary behaviour as well as during confinement caused by COVID-19.
The most active subjects showed the highest decrease in vigorous activity time and this may be explained by two main reasons: the forced sudden inaccessibility to community resources (e.g. sports facilities, urban trails, parks, green spaces, etc.) and the lack of time to react during the first weeks of confinement to gather fitness resources in order to continue engaging in regular activities at home.
Regarding moderate activities, our data showed that it barely changed in all the population and this could be attributed to the fact that some people might have been maintaining the minimum recommended time doing alternative activities at home. In this regard, the less active population increased vigorous and moderate activities during confinement and that could be related to the promotion of such activities by health institutions, fitness centres, the Internet and television by posting daily online workout routines. Thus, there are people that have found new ways of being more active during this lockdown.
Active behaviour changed according to gender. Both genders reduced walking time to a similar extent, although men showed a higher decrease in vigorous activities that may be related to the greater physical inactivity prevalence reported in women over the years. (21–24). According to sedentary behaviour, sitting time showed a higher increase in men who also significantly reduced moderate activities while women increased these activities. This could be attributed to the gender gap by historically proven female inequality in household and child care tasks, in which where men have shown a low level of involvement in Spain (25–27).
Regarding fulfilment of physical activity recommendations, the global age-standardized prevalence among the non-active population was 27.5% in 2016 (22). According to the Eurobarometer (Eurobarometer, 2014), 33.6% of the Spanish adult population did not attain minimum levels of physical activity, and 36% spent most of the day sitting down (National Health Surveys in Spain, n.d.). In our population, our inactive population before confinement is lower (25.3% according to 75 min/week vigorous physical activity) in comparison to Eurobarometer. That may be explained by the fact that the population recruited for the study was particularly more active as shown in the data for people undertaking > 225 min/week of vigorous activities, and this could be attributed to the fact that the questionnaire was shared by institutions related to sport, exercise and biomechanics. Therefore, it is to be expected that we recruited a population that is commonly more active than the general population.
A limitation of the current study is that we selected the IPAQ- Short version instead of the IPAQ-Long one because of concerns that the length of the questionnaire would result in significant participant burden. In addition, although the questionnaire collects data about the last 7 days, in our study we requested information beyond a week, which may be justified due to the unprecedented situation and the lack of time available to manage more appropriate study design and methods. Another limitation would be the cross-sectional design of the study, since directionality of the associations cannot be established.
On the other hand, one of the strengths of the study is that the questionnaire was sent just when the population started confinement (during the first two weeks), so it is likely the participants had their common activities in mind before confinement in a fresh and realistic form. To our knowledge, this is the first study carried out on a confined large sample size, which may be useful in designing different strategies in order to reduce sedentarism and increase physical activity by the confined population.