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Need to Stay Healthy?
Before getting into how much physical activity adults need to stay healthy, let’s first discuss what types of activities count. Basically, activities are broken down into two categories: aerobic and muscle strengthening.
Aerobic
These are the types of exercises that get your heart rate up like: • Walking • Swimming • Riding a bike • Playing tennis • Mowing the lawn
Muscle Strengthening Activities that work the major muscle groups, such as legs, arms, chest, back, shoulders and arms count under this type of physical activity. This includes: • Lifting weights using dumbbells, barbells or weight-simulating machines • Using resistance bands • Performing bodyweight exercises without any additional weight • Certain types of gardening • Yoga Other Considerations
Besides the type of activity, two other considerations are: • Time – how long you exercise • Intensity – how hard you push your body
Usually the more intense the activity, the shorter amount of time it can be performed until failure. Intensity is broken down into moderate and vigorous. Good examples between two types of intensities are walking (moderate) verses jogging (vigorous) or tennis doubles (moderate) verses singles (vigorous).
In America, both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and American Heart Association (AHA) recommend getting at a minimum 150 minutes per week of moderate aerobic activity, or 75 minutes of vigorous, along with two or more days per week of muscle-strengthening exercises that target all the major muscle groups. Do one set of 12 to 15 repetitions per set of each muscle group exercise. Just make sure the musclestrengthening days are not back to back as muscles need at least a day inbetween to recover.
For those who have not exercised in a while, see your healthcare professional first before starting any exercise program. Second, start out slowly. You’ll know when you are exercising at the proper rate when you can carry on a conversation while exercising.
Gradually work up to the recommended minimum amount of activity time per week – 30 minutes per day, five days per week. Even three 10-minute sessions per day provide the same, if not more, health benefits than one 30-minute session.
The CDC and AHA also note that greater health benefits can be gained by bumping the aerobic time up to 300 minutes per week along with the same amount of strength training. The bottom lines are doing any physical activity is better than nothing and it is never too late to start.
Start slow. Set milestones along the way that once accomplished help gradually work you up to the recommended amount of weekly activity.
