Moderate Exercise For 150 Minutes a Week - Yes! But What is Moderate, and What About Walking?
Do you want reasonable life enhancing fitness without the pain and sweat? Do 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week.
That is the conventional wisdom for health benefits.
But what is moderate? I used to measure the intensity of an activity by my heart rate.
Now days, metabolic rate is preferred.
Metabolic rate is measured in metabolic equivalents (METs).
This unit is measured by dividing your metabolic rate doing a particular exercise by your metabolic rate sitting doing nothing (1 MET).
Moderate exercise lies in the range between 3 to 6 METs.
Oh- and for the chronically lazy, I am pretty sure that sitting for eight hours does not have the fitness benefits of 150 minutes of moderate exercise! How do you work out the MET for an exercise or activity? You could have your oxygen uptake measured- but, if you are not competing for the Olympic Games or something like that, you don't have to be that accurate.
You can get an estimate for the MET of an activity by looking it up on a free list provided by a university.
The link is at the bottom of this article.
Sorry folks, but darts, miniature golf, and lawn bowls don't count as moderate exercise.
But, you may be pleased to know that golf makes it into the moderate exercise list (without the golf cart), as long as you walk! Walking, one of my favourite exercises (and leisure activity), can range from 2 to 12 METs, depending on speed and slope.
So, how do you work out what your MET is with such a large range? For most people, walking purposefully is about right.
That is the speed you might use when you are mildly concerned that you are a bit late to an important meeting.
Something about 100 steps a minute on a flat surface, rates at 3 MET [American Journal of Preventative Medicine vol 36, p 410].
The more overweight you are, the higher the MET as well.
After a couple of minutes of walking, when I am in a rhythm, I count how many steps I do in 60 seconds.
This is a simple way to keep track of your walking speed and an idea of the MET.
As you become adapted to walking, increase your walking rate to 120 steps a minute.
Then start finding some areas with mild to moderate slopes.
In effect, you are moving up the MET scale of walking.
How long and how often should moderate exercise sessions be?.
There has been a lot of debate about how long you should exercise for.
It seems that the total time is more important than the length of individual exercise times.
For example, doing 150 minutes exercise over two to three days seems to work as well as 5 lots of 30 minutes a week.
Even better, three lots of 10 minutes seems to give as much benefit as one 30 minute session [Sports Medicine, vol 39, p 29].
This is great.
That means you can pick a range of activities with an MET of 3-6, and fit 150 minutes of useful and enjoyable fitness activities into your life.
You could do an hour hike on the weekend, run around with your kids for 30 minutes one afternoon, walk briskly with the dog for 30 minutes twice a week.
Do something like this and you have done your 150 minutes worth of moderate exercise.
When you get used to you 150 minutes worth, start using the stairs regularly, include a few hills in your walk, mop the floor a bit faster, or push the mower more quickly.
You will be surprised just how much your health starts to improve.
Hey- it's not that hard.
You have no excuses.
Walking for health really makes a difference.
Walk to Live!
That is the conventional wisdom for health benefits.
But what is moderate? I used to measure the intensity of an activity by my heart rate.
Now days, metabolic rate is preferred.
Metabolic rate is measured in metabolic equivalents (METs).
This unit is measured by dividing your metabolic rate doing a particular exercise by your metabolic rate sitting doing nothing (1 MET).
Moderate exercise lies in the range between 3 to 6 METs.
Oh- and for the chronically lazy, I am pretty sure that sitting for eight hours does not have the fitness benefits of 150 minutes of moderate exercise! How do you work out the MET for an exercise or activity? You could have your oxygen uptake measured- but, if you are not competing for the Olympic Games or something like that, you don't have to be that accurate.
You can get an estimate for the MET of an activity by looking it up on a free list provided by a university.
The link is at the bottom of this article.
Sorry folks, but darts, miniature golf, and lawn bowls don't count as moderate exercise.
But, you may be pleased to know that golf makes it into the moderate exercise list (without the golf cart), as long as you walk! Walking, one of my favourite exercises (and leisure activity), can range from 2 to 12 METs, depending on speed and slope.
So, how do you work out what your MET is with such a large range? For most people, walking purposefully is about right.
That is the speed you might use when you are mildly concerned that you are a bit late to an important meeting.
Something about 100 steps a minute on a flat surface, rates at 3 MET [American Journal of Preventative Medicine vol 36, p 410].
The more overweight you are, the higher the MET as well.
After a couple of minutes of walking, when I am in a rhythm, I count how many steps I do in 60 seconds.
This is a simple way to keep track of your walking speed and an idea of the MET.
As you become adapted to walking, increase your walking rate to 120 steps a minute.
Then start finding some areas with mild to moderate slopes.
In effect, you are moving up the MET scale of walking.
How long and how often should moderate exercise sessions be?.
There has been a lot of debate about how long you should exercise for.
It seems that the total time is more important than the length of individual exercise times.
For example, doing 150 minutes exercise over two to three days seems to work as well as 5 lots of 30 minutes a week.
Even better, three lots of 10 minutes seems to give as much benefit as one 30 minute session [Sports Medicine, vol 39, p 29].
This is great.
That means you can pick a range of activities with an MET of 3-6, and fit 150 minutes of useful and enjoyable fitness activities into your life.
You could do an hour hike on the weekend, run around with your kids for 30 minutes one afternoon, walk briskly with the dog for 30 minutes twice a week.
Do something like this and you have done your 150 minutes worth of moderate exercise.
When you get used to you 150 minutes worth, start using the stairs regularly, include a few hills in your walk, mop the floor a bit faster, or push the mower more quickly.
You will be surprised just how much your health starts to improve.
Hey- it's not that hard.
You have no excuses.
Walking for health really makes a difference.
Walk to Live!
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