Physical activity recommendations

A question I’ll often hear from clients is, “how much exercise/physical activity should I be doing?”

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reviewed the exercise science literature and formulated the following physical activity guidelines for adults (age 18-64 years), they are:

• All adults should undertake regular physical activity.

• Adults should do at least 150–300 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise/physical activity; or at least 75–150 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic exercise/physical activity; or an equivalent combination of both throughout the week.

• Adults should also do muscle strengthening activities at moderate or greater intensity involving all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week.

These recommendations are also endorsed by the Australian Governments Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. The WHO also prepares physical activity guidelines for children/adolescents, older adults, pregnant/postpartum women, adults/older adults with chronic conditions and children/adolescents/adults living with a disability. You can review the document summarising all the recommendations here.

The WHO also introduces these recommendations suggesting:

“physical activity can be undertaken as part of recreation and leisure (play, games, sports or planned exercise), transportation (wheeling, walking and cycling), work or household chores, in the context of daily occupational, educational, home and community settings.” (p. 32)

Why exercise/physical activity?

As part of the exercise science research review, the WHO has identified exercise/physical activity as a means of positively influencing all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, site specific cancers (colon cancer and breast cancer), type-2 diabetes, mental health (reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression), cognitive health, sleep and measures of adiposity.

Getting started with exercise/physical activity recommendations, meet Sam…

Sam is 46 years old, he has two teenage sons, his work can be stressful, with occasional long hours. Sam has a developing interest in healthy aging, he starts by reducing his alcohol intake and then decides to look at exercise/physical activity. He observes, a weekly gym session with his youngest son and gardening on Sundays sufficient to fulfill the recommendation of two weekly strengthening sessions. In the aerobic exercise domain, he observes a weekly over-35s soccer game to represent 20-mins of vigorous intensity and 20-mins moderate intensity aerobic exercise, plus two surfs each week that represent 30-mins moderate intensity exercise. This summary totals at 80-mins moderate intensity aerobic and 20-mins vigorous intensity aerobic exercise. Sam summarises that he should work towards increasing his participation in aerobic exercise/physical activity. He considers dusting off an old exercise bike stored in the shed and incorporating short 10-15 bursts of vigorous cycling into his busy workday.

While Sam is not reaching the WHO’s physical activity guidelines, the gym, gardening, soccer and surfing are still likely to positively influence his health. And if he can increase his aerobic exercise, it is likely to confer a greater benefit.

Start by identifying the gaps…

Like Sam, it all starts with a review of how much exercise/physical activity is a part of a typical week, the first step is identifying the gaps. Remember also, doing some physical activity is better than doing none and when working towards these recommendations start with small amounts of exercise/physical activity and gradually increase over time.

This post is the beginning of small series built around the WHO’s physical activity guidelines for adults (age 18-64 years). Upcoming posts will individually examine the aerobic exercise and muscle strengthening recommendations.

Thanks for reading, Warwick (Movement Health, Forster Tuncurry Massage)..

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World Health Organization. (2020). WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Geneva. https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/336656/9789240015128-eng.pdf?sequence=1

*Disclaimer, this is a discussion and does not represent an exercise prescription, for exercise or injury advice seek an appropriately trained health professional.