Fitness Activity – What Counts?

Aerobic activity or "cardio" gets you breathing harder and your heart beating faster. From pushing a lawn mower, taking a dance class, or biking to the store – all types of activities count. Try doing them at a moderate or vigorous intensity for at least 10 minutes at a time. (150 minutes per week recommended)How do you know if you're doing light, moderate, or vigorous intensity aerobic activities? For most people, light daily activities such as shopping, cooking, or doing the laundry doesn't count toward the guidelines. Why?

Your body isn't working hard enough to get your heart rate up.

Moderate-intensity aerobic activity means you're working hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat. One way to tell is that you'll be able to talk, but not sing the words to your favorite song. Vigorous-intensity aerobic activity means you're breathing hard and fast, and your heart rate has gone up quite a bit. If you're working at this level, you won't be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath.

Besides aerobic activity, you need to do things to strengthen your muscles at least 2 days a week. These activities should work all the major muscle groups of your body (legs, hips, back, chest, abdomen, shoulders, and arms).

To gain health benefits, muscle-strengthening activities need to be done to the point where it's hard for you to do another repetition without help. A repetition is one complete movement of an activity, like lifting a weight or doing a sit-up. Try to do 8—12 repetitions per activity that count as 1 set. Try to do at least 1 set of muscle-strengthening activities, but to gain even more benefits, do 2 or 3 sets.

You can do activities that strengthen your muscles on the same or different days that you do aerobic activity, whatever works best. Try to allow 48 hours rest for each muscle group worked. There are many ways you can strengthen your muscles, whether it's at home or the gym.

(Information provided by the CDC)