What is Moderate Intensity Exercise?

Jake Foster, PABy Jake Foster, PA

 

The American Heart Association, among other organizations have some specific recommendations for exercise that I think bear paying some attention to. The recommendations are based on our best understanding of how to be our healthiest selves, improve overall health and wellbeing, prevent disease and improve quality of life.

For adults, the recommendation is for at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity, or a combination of both. Additionally, there is a recommendation to add high intensity muscle strengthening activities at least 2 days per week.

What is moderate or vigorous intensity? This seems like a vague recommendation, and it is hard to set goals for activity unless there is some specifics to work towards. The intensity of exercise is based off a percentage of the maximum heart rate. So “150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise” is a specific recommendation for the amount of time that your heart rate should be within a specific zone. “Moderate intensity” is getting your heart beating at a rate within a certain range, and the AHA advises we keep it in that range for 150 minutes a week.

Unless you dig into what exactly these intensity zones mean for you, you won’t ever know if you are actually meeting these exercise targets. The only way to do this for sure is to calculate your maximum heart rate, then determine what percentage of that heart rate is “moderate” or “vigorous” for you. This is simple enough to do, but unless you are wearing a heart rate monitor, you won’t know for sure if you are meeting this goal. Although this recommendation from the AHA might seem relatively simple at first glance, it turns out to be slightly more technical than meets the eye, and my concern is that it really isn’t something that we pay all that close attention to. This doesn’t even cover the “150 minute” per week recommendation. What is that all about even?

Let’s see if we can simplify it a bit and then let’s set some goals to get this done.

I could give you the quick and simple formula to calculate your maximum heart rate, and what percentage of that heart rate would be the “moderate” intensity target. But let’s make it more simple than that, and you won’t likely need a heart rate monitor to meet the goal. You’ll just need a timer. Moderate intensity exercise is an intensity where you can exercise, but still maintain a conversation without getting too out of breath, but you probably won’t be too interested in talking too much all at once. You will be moving to a degree that you aren’t really out of breath, and you will very likely feel some sweat beading up. That is basically what “moderate” feels like. THe goal then would be to get to this point and maintain it for 150 minutes a week. The easiest way to do this is to set a timer when you are at this level of exercise, and log your minutes until you get 150 of them in a week. This can be done pretty easily in 5 days of 30 minutes.

Exercise intensity looks different for everyone, but what really matters is that we pay attention to our activity level, and set some goals to move more. By having a simple goal to move 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, and at an intensity where you could maintain a conversation, and also start to feel some sweat beading up, you will very likely meet this highly recommended target.

I promise you good things will follow for your physical and mental health if you set this goal and work towards it.