Is zone zero the same thing as Frugalmatic Fitness?

There’s a new name for the type of physical activity that I’ve been promoting since starting Frugalmatic several years ago. It’s called zone zero. Kind of cool sounding, and I wish I had thought of the name first. Then again, I’ve never been accused of being cool (Have you seen my flip phone?).

But everything about this “new” style of exercise, or what’s also known as effortless exercise, reminds me of Frugalmatic Fitness, a self-guided exercise program that I launched in 2021. Frugalmatic Fitness is all about moving more but with an anti-exercise attitude. It’s reflective of my own frugal habits and some mistrust of the exercise/athletic industry.

I’m not a personal trainer and not a medical doctor—and I happily tout my lack of credentials. Indeed, I can hardly picture a personal trainer or doctor creating Frugalmatic Fitness. Frugalmatic Fitness requires no equipment, no apps, and no memberships. You don’t have to join a community to do it, and I don’t tweet out hashtags about the program.

The goal of Frugalmatic Fitness participants is simple: To move more by the time they finish the four-week program, and for many years after that.

So, it’s been a little surprising to learn that some personal trainers and elements of the exercise establishment are suddenly onboard with and promoting the kind of effortless exercise that I’ve been happily performing and promoting for years.

What is zone zero?

In a nutshell, zone zero refers to those activities that keep your heart rate below its 50% maximum rate. The higher the zone, the higher the heart rate. There are five zones. Typically when you see an advertisement for athletic wear, it shows an athlete sweating profusely with a heart rate probably in zone three or four. The athletic industry wants us to believe exercise happens only during special times while wearing special clothes and using special equipment and following a special app. Not coincidentally, all this specialness often costs a bunch of money.

How Frugalmatic Fitness uses zone zero

To be clear, Frugalmatic Fitness doesn’t use heart rate as a measurement tool. Frugalmatic Fitness can be customized for any daily routine, so heart rates can vary widely. Still, regular readers of this site know that Frugalmatic Fitness is a fan of physical activities that happen to fit into the zone zero range. Frugalmatic Fitness promotes activities with a dual purpose, such as gardening, hanging up the laundry, washing a vehicle, or cooking a meal. Researchers refer to these types of tasks as incidental physical activity. Few people think of them as exercise, and yet they often act as exercise in terms of their health benefits. They can help with, for example, blood-sugar and stress management.

With Frugalmatic Fitness, you’re examining your daily routine in search of opportunities to add more movement to it, ideally without having to add much extra time for exercise. Zone zero activities tend to work well within daily routines because they don’t stand out as exercise and can be disguised as practical tasks.

Neither Frugalmatic Fitness nor zone zero is a magic bullet or shortcut to fitness. It subscribes to the idea that some movement is better than none, hopefully helping its adherents avoid some of the health problems associated with living a sedentary lifestyle. The fact is, thanks to digital technologies, far too many people spend too much time being inactive (which is one reason I don’t use a smartphone). That’s the nature of our world today and zone zero and Frugalmatic Fitness counter that effect.

In some ways, the less conscious you are of being physically active, the easier it is to be physically active.

How Frugalmatic Fitness might differ from zone zero

I’d say where Frugalmatic Fitness and zone zero perhaps differ is the intention. Frugalmatic Fitness adherents build physical activity into their daily routines without thinking about it as exercise. For that matter, they don’t really care which heart rate zone they’re in. My understanding is that many zone zero enthusiasts perform certain activities strictly for their health benefits, not necessarily for any practical purpose.

I, for one, don’t bother to wear a fitness tracker (although I did for several weeks a few years ago to try it out). I know my routine is automatically adding enough steps to my day, so there’s need for me to track it.

In some ways, the less conscious you are of being physically active, the easier it is to be physically active. For example, I don’t wash our vehicles because it’s a physical activity. Rather, I wash them to clean them. I don’t mow the lawn for a workout but rather to cut the grass. AIl my biggest walks during the week involve going to work, church, or the store. I rarely walk just to walk. It’s much easier to be physically active if you design a routine to include activities whose main purpose isn’t exercise for the sake of exercise.

Frugalmatic Fitness is designed to mirror what I call the physically active mindset. Once you develop this mindset, physical activity feels less optional and more inevitable. It becomes part of one’s day, much like brushing one’s teeth or getting dressed.

Both systems are about moving more

All in all, the emergence of zone zero is a positive development. What matters most is that people are thinking about how to move more and sit less. Zone zero is perhaps more aligned with the exercise establishment, promoted by personal trainers. If zone zero were a piece of apparel, it would probably be yoga pants. On the other hand, Frugalmatic Fitness is more like a pair of denim jeans, without any spandex.