Exercising daily comes with its own set of benefits. From boosting your energy throughout the day to promoting better sleep, one cannot deny how important regular exercise is. However, there is one major question that must be answered. How much exercise is good for you?
As per the latest guidelines of the Department of Health & Human Services, you can indulge in either aerobic activities or in strength training to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In terms of how much time you can devote to them, they have stated:
- Aerobic activities – You must commit at least 150 minutes or two-and-a-half hours to moderate aerobic exercises. Another option is to give no less than 75 minutes to intense aerobic activities or you can combine both the moderate and intense aerobic activities into a single work out.
However, these minutes must be spread evenly throughout the week. While greater amounts of aerobic exercise would reap more fruitful results, even smaller periods of such exercises can prove to be beneficial for your body.
- Strength training – If we talk about strength training, their exercises can be done twice a week for each group of muscles. If you are just getting used to strength training, ensure that you start with only one set of each exercise.
Now, you may ask what is included in these moderate and intense aerobic exercises?
Moderate aerobic exercises refer to activities that result in a higher heart rate and body temperature. In other words – exercises that make you gasp for breath. A few of these activities include swimming for around 20 minutes, walking at least 2 miles within 30 minutes, or simply jumping the ropes for 15 minutes. You may have noticed that all such activities have a duration of more than 10 minutes. This is because to benefit from cardio exercises, you must work your heart for more than 10 minutes.
Intense aerobic exercises refer to activities that also result in a higher heart rate and body temperature. However, the primary difference is that at the end of these exercises you won’t even have enough breath to make conversation with someone! A few examples of these exercises include sports such as football, rugby, and tennis. Apart from them, dancing, squash, and cycling are also prominent examples of intense aerobic exercises.
What happens if you want the best of both worlds? Fortunately, there is another option that combines the benefits of all these exercises.
Switch to HIIT..
High-Intensity Interval Training refers to working out in intervals ranging from about 15-20 seconds with recovery periods in between them. While this process can go on for several minutes, the primary objective of HIIT is to get your maximum heart rate capacity to 80-90%.
The benefits of performing this training regularly are endless. From improving the health of your heart and lungs to also improving your aerobic and anaerobic fitness, HIIT proves to be the most successful type of training available. Moreover, it also gives you the added benefits of burning fat and improving your cholesterol levels.
Plus, one can perform the HIIT through various formats such as through weights, sprinting, and circuit training. Whatever format you choose, it would enable you to reap the benefits of HIIT. All these points make HIIT a better training exercise in comparison to other conventional formats of exercises. However, there is one catch – to perform HIIT, you must be healthy enough to absorb the high rates of stress on your body.
Overall, it can be said that exercising daily is essential. However, the time you allot to such exercises depends upon your health and body structure.
