What amount of exercise do you need to stay healthy?
A frequently asked question in modern life is how much exercise we need to stay healthy and fit in our day-to-day living. Exercise can take many forms, from intense cycling to simple house cleaning. However, what is the optimum amount of exercise required to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle? Here's the realbuzz.com guide on how much exercise is right for you, depending on your fitness goals.
People often ask the question, ‘How much exercise do I need to do to stay fit and healthy?’. The answer is always the same: it depends on what your fitness goals are. Tedious, I know — but the amount of exercise someone needs in order to shed 10kg is very different from the amount someone who simply wants to keep their heart healthy needs, so the ambiguity is unavoidable. Fitness is not a level playing field, and we all ask the ‘How much do I need?’ question with our own individual level of fitness in mind.
Assuming that we are talking about the bare exercise necessities (because, let’s face it, that’s what most of us want), you might think that there would be a universally accepted minimum amount of fitness activity you can get away with, but still benefit from. But the actual amount of activity varies depending on who you listen to.
In the UK, ‘30 minutes of exercise on most days of the week’ is still the mantra supported by the government and the British Heart Foundation. And indeed, a recent study at Duke University Medical Centre found that 30 minutes of daily walking exercise over eight months resulted in reduced body weight, waist circumference and body fat.
[Relevant: What's the right time for your workout?]
However, the US-based Institute of Medicine recommends: ‘At least 60 minutes each day of moderately intense physical activity to prevent weight gain and achieve the full health benefits of activity’ — a recommendation endorsed by the American Council on Exercise. ‘An hour of physical activity appears to be necessary for optimal health,’ said Dr Cedric Bryant, the Council’s chief exercise physiologist. ‘With 60 minutes of exercise per day, you can maintain health and reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer.’
While an hour a day sounds like a daunting prospect for the average exercise shirker, Dr Bryant reminds us that it doesn’t necessarily entail ‘a grueling hour of exercise.’ He states that: ‘Energy expenditure is cumulative, including both low-intensity activities of daily life — such as stair-climbing and house cleaning — and more vigorous exercise [such as] swimming and cycling.’
Some studies suggest that what is more important than the length of your exercise workouts is their intensity. In the Duke University study, the 30-minute-a-day walkers got reasonably good results. But those who jogged for 30 minutes a day got even better results. Many experts now believe that it’s the effort, rather than the duration, of exercise that really matters. A study in Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise found that in young women, high-intensity cycling — compared to low-intensity cycling with an identical overall work output (in other words, the low-intensity group cycled for longer) — resulted in significantly higher energy expenditure during the exercise itself and over the subsequent 24-hour period.
According to exercise physiologist Gary O’Donovan, vigorous exercise is the way forward to getting your body fit. He suggests that: 'Health, fitness and performance are all maximized by working harder — which isn't to say that you won't benefit from lighter exercise, just that you will benefit more if you work harder during your fitness sessions.'
And happily, there is an inverse relationship between duration and effort. The harder you work, the shorter the exercise session can be. Scientists reporting in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition stated that successful weight loss, maintained for a year, was achieved by either 80 minutes a day of moderate intensity activity, or 35 minutes per day of vigorous activity. But, of course, you need to be fit enough to sustain that high-intensity pace — which means you need to take the time to improve your fitness level through — guess what? — longer, more moderate exercise sessions, mixed with some interval training to get you accustomed to working at that higher effort level.
So the bottom line is: be as active as you can, exercise as often as you can, for as long as you can. With few of us meeting even the 30-minute a day activity recommendations, such advice is unlikely to take you into the realms of overtraining.
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