Written by: Emily Winkels; SLU Dietetic Intern
Only 26% of men, 19% of women, and 20% of adolescents meet the current physical activity guidelines for Americans1. The latest physical activity guidelines were established in 2018, but most Americans are falling short. There is significant evidence that shows how important physical activity is for disease prevention, cognitive function, mental health, and even sleep1. Knowing how imperative physical activity is for our health, well-being, and longevity how do we realistically meet the guidelines and apply them to our busy lives?
Figure 1: Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (Department of Health and Human Services, 2024)
The current Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans1 are as follows:
Per week we should be aiming for:
· 150 minutes - 300 minutes of Moderate Intensity Exercise (equivalent to 2.5-5.0 hours)*
OR
· 75 minutes - 150 minutes of Vigorous Intensity Exercise (equivalent to 1.25-2.5 hours)*
o * Or a combination of both Moderate and Vigorous Intensity Exercise
AND
· Muscle Strengthening activities x2/week @ at least moderate intensity that involves ALL muscle groups
Additional health benefits are beyond the 300 minutes/week of moderate intensity exercise1.
As a busy dietetic intern and master's student studying nutrition and physical performance, I fully understand how busy life can get and how easy it is to put physical activity on the back burner when life gets busy. After learning more about the physical activity guidelines in my Exercise Testing and Prescription class this semester, I found the guidelines a bit challenging to understand at first. I found myself asking the following questions, do I even have time to meet all of these guidelines? Are these guidelines practical for students, or for full-time employees, or for busy parents? What does it mean to exercise at moderate intensity? Vigorous intensity? You may be asking yourself the same questions, which is why I want to break down these guidelines a bit and offer practical tips to incorporating more movement into your daily routine.
Let's start with a few basic definitions and differentiate between physical activity and exercise. Exercise is defined as "planned, structured, and repetitive" movement that aims to improve physical fitness2. Physical activity "is defined as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure"2. Physical activity essentially includes exercise as well as movement such as walking around your workplace, or doing chores around the house, or shoveling the driveway when it snows.
There are many different kinds of physical activity, but each may require varying amounts of intensity. For example, there is a difference in intensity between sweeping the floor at home and running sprints outside. This is where the exercise intensity definitions come into play. There are three types of physical activity intensities: light, moderate, and vigorous.
· Light-intensity activity mainly encompasses "non-sedentary walking behaviors"1 and has the lowest amount of energy expenditure. It can also be expressed as being active using below 50% of your relative max heart rate3. I personally like to describe this intensity as one that gets you moving and active but not so much that you are breaking out a sweat or out of breath.
o Examples include household chores, walking at a slow pace, cooking, etc.
· Moderate-intensity activity requires more effort than light intensity. It amps up your heart rate to about 50-70% of your relative max heart rate3. Another way to think about this intensity is to try talking when you exercise. For example, if you are cycling at a moderate intensity, you should be able to hold a decent conversation, and your breathing will begin to quicken more than if you were walking slowly3.
o Examples include bicycling for leisure, brisk walking, strength-training, rowing, recreational sports, etc.
· Vigorous-intensity activity is the most challenging intensity. At this rate, you are using 70-85% of your maximum heart rate and breaking a sweat within only a few minutes3.
o Examples include running or sprinting, cycling at a fast pace, power lifting, competitive sports, stair climbing (fast pace), swimming laps (fast pace), High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) etc.
If you have a smart watch like I do, you might be familiar with what your heart rate is during your exercise. A helpful tip is that most smart watches can track what heart zone you are in during your activity so you can monitor just how hard you are working and what exercise intensity you are in.
Now that we are more familiar with what these different activity intensities are, we can now explore how we can implement these in our daily lives.
The best way to implement exercise and more physical activity into your daily routine is to find something you enjoy. It is common for social media or news outlets to market that you must do this one exercise for certain health benefits or to lose X amount of weight or to look a certain way, but I am here to tell you that forcing yourself to do physical activity that you do not enjoy is not sustainable. With increasing our physical activity, we don’t want to just make it a new year’s resolution that never sticks. The goal is to make physical activity part of our lifestyle and make it something that is sustainable and supports our physical and mental health.
Below I will offer some practical tips to help you implement more physical activity into your routine:
Exercise Breaks during the Workday: If you are like me and crave movement during a long workday sitting at a desk, taking short breaks throughout the day is your friend. There are a couple strategies you can use to achieve this. If you are in a tall building, take a break every hour and walk up and down a few flights of stairs. Or is there a further water fountain or bathroom you can walk to? If you work at home, walking to a different room in the house to pet your cat maybe a fun way to get in some movement. Between my clinical rotations and night class and when the weather is nice, I enjoy walking around my school’s campus track even if it’s only for a few minutes. Just having that break to move my body gets me active and feeling good. It is a great way to take a brain break after hours of working too!
No equipment? No problem: If you do not have access to workout equipment or a gym membership, technology is your friend. There are countless equipment-free exercise tutorials on the internet that you can try. From Pilates to body weight strength training, to dance workouts, the options are endless. One of my personal favorite ways to practice this (and great for kids too) is Just Dance. If you do not have a Wii, YouTube has countless free Just Dance videos that will be sure to get your heart rate up in no time!
Movement is Movement: As my exercise routine has changed over the years from being a competitive athlete, to a recreational runner and lifter, to now a busy grad student, I learned that different seasons of life require different types of movement. For example, during my senior year of college, I had the time to train for a marathon at the end of the school year. Nowadays I am lucky if I have time to get a quick walk in on my walking pad or in my neighborhood after a long day. Giving yourself the grace to switch up your exercise routine if your schedule does not allow it, is okay. Finding ways to move throughout your day in both the busy and the slow times of life is what is going to benefit you the most. Even if you only have a few minutes to do some quick exercises or walk your dog at the end of the day, movement is movement.
Bored with your Exercise? Trying a new type of exercise might also be a way to get you motivated to move more. Are you burnt out on the same exercises at the gym? Maybe try checking out a new workout class. Are you bored running the same loop at your favorite park? Go in the opposite direction or find a new trail you’ve never ran on before. Trying a variety of ways to be physical activity is not just helpful for your motivation, but you might also end up working different muscle groups. For example, after training for my marathon and getting a shoulder injury, I had to take months off of running or lifting weights with my upper body. At first, I was super discouraged that I had to take a break from what I’ve been doing for so long, but then I discovered cycling and going on walks outside and now I enjoy doing both as I recover. Again, the key is to be creative with how you move and find what is going to help you make physical activity a bigger part of your lifestyle.
I hope some of these ideas inspire you to incorporate more physical activity into your daily life! Remember to integrate different intensities of exercise throughout your week, find little ways to be more active throughout your week, and choose movement that YOU find joy in. Happy Exercising! :)
Resources:
1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2018). Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition. Retrieved from https://odphp.health.gov/paguidelines/second-edition/pdf/Physical_Activity_Guidelines_2nd_edition.pdf
2. Caspersen, C. J., Powell, K. E., & Christenson, G. M. (1985). Physical activity, exercise, and physical fitness: definitions and distinctions for health-related research. Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974), 100(2), 126–131.
3. Mayo Clinic. (2023, August 25). Exercise intensity: How to measure it. Mayo Clinic; Mayo
Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise-intensity/art
20046887
No comments:
Post a Comment