The following post is brought to us by guest blogger Kyle Turcotte, Certified Exercise Physiologist and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.
Physical Activity is important for our health and we need different types of activity to keep us healthy. Health is a multifaceted concept and physical health is just one part of it, but that’s a conversation for another day. So having said that, how much exercise do we need?
How much exercise?
There are a couple of ways to look at this question. An easy way to answer this is to look to an excellent document put out by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology and Participaction, Canada’s Physical Activity Guidelines. There are different age-specific guidelines available – adult, older adult, youth, etc. You can visit CSEP’s website by clicking here to see them all. Let’s look at the recommendations for adults.
Aerobic or “Cardio” Training
There are two components of fitness covered by the recommendations, aerobic and resistance training. Recommendations for the quantity of aerobic or “cardio” is at least 150 minutes a week. Intensity defines the quality of exercise with the recommendation that it be moderate to vigorous. Moderate refers to activity that gets a light sweat going, like a brisk walk or a bike ride. Vigorous describes activity that gets you sweating and out of breath, like jogging or cross country skiing.
Another way to tell if your intensity is vigorous is to do the talk test; if you can hold a conversation your intensity is not high enough. Vigorous exercise is challenging and you may need to work your way up to that level. I’ll be talking about how to incorporate progression into exercise in a future post.
Resistance Training
For resistance exercises the recommendations are to include strengthening exercises two days a week. This is a good place to start and these two days need to be nonconsecutive. Resistance training variables – sets, reps and rest period – can be manipulated to produce different types of changes to your muscles. Endurance is the best place to start, 1-2 sets of 12-20 reps with about 1 minute rest between sets.
Last month I shared why resistance training is important as well as a basic intro program to get you started in The Importance of Resistance Training.
Fitness Testing
Fitness testing is an excellent way to check up on your physical fitness, just like going to the doctor. CSEP professionals are qualified to evaluate health-based fitness. Look for a CSEP Certified Personal Trainer or Certified Exercise Physiologist if you would like to have a personal fitness assessment. A well-executed fitness assessment should be followed by goal setting and plan to help you achieve those goals.
You need a place to start, a bench mark on getting healthy. Start here, but keep in mind that this is just the beginning you can be even healthier by being more physically active. So get out there and find something you love to do that will help meet and exceed the guidelines!
Keep Well…Kyle
Kyle is a Certified Exercise Physiologist and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist who works for the Canadian Sport Centre Manitoba. He’s a husband and father of two boys and loves playing volleyball and touch football. He’s a huge Saints fan.
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