How Much Exercise Do You Need?

How Much Exercise Do You Need?

Everybody knows that exercise is crucial to living a long and healthy life, but how much exercise do you actually need?

The general guideline is 30 minutes a day at least five days a week. But does that work for every person? And what type of exercise should you be doing?

The type of exercise that you do will determine how much exercise you should be getting. So will your health and fitness goals.

For example, if you do very high intensity aerobic exercise, you can get enough in just 75 minutes per week. However, you’ll also want to do some strength training and stretching, which will require more time.

How Much to Exercise

It’s also not necessary to do one 30 minute workout each day. Any combination of moderate-intensity exercise that adds up to 30 minutes a day is a good idea. For example, you can do your exercise in 10-minute blocks throughout the week, as long as it adds up to 150 minutes in a week. This is perfect for days when you don’t have enough time to dedicate a full 30 minute block to exercise.

What does “moderate-intensity” mean? It means working out hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat. This includes walking quickly, riding a bike on relatively flat ground, pushing a lawn mower, etc.

Vigorous-intensity exercise means breathing hard and fast and increasing your heart rate quite a bit. This is exercise such as jogging, swimming, riding a bike fast or on hills, etc. Overall, one minute of vigorous-intensity exercise is about the same as two minutes of moderate-intensity exercise.

What Type of Exercise to Do

When it comes to what sort of exercises you should be doing, this will depend on your fitness level as well as your goals. For example, if you want to lose weight, it’s a good idea to focus on doing at least 300 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity each week. However, if you’re looking to tone up your body, you might want to keep your cardio at the 150 minutes per week and be sure to do strength and resistance training.

Remember, if you’re just starting out, it’s important to start slowly and work your way up.