Well, I have to say that, despite a few okay biking days in there, this winter was pretty crap when it came to outdoor activities, and I’m left feeling unfit, and suffering from a ‘lack of physical activity’. Note that I use the word ‘suffer’, there. That’s because when I have been unable to obtain sufficient physical activity, I don’t sleep well, I have a poor appetite, I feel tired and run down, and I am mentally sluggish and grumpy. In short, I suffer. I have been endeavouring to remedy this suffering this past week with some ‘cardio-vascular activity’ (which others might call running or jogging, but since I don’t really like doing such things, I’m not calling it that).
All of this led me to wonder just what ‘adequate physical exercise’ actually is? How much exercise, and what sort of exercise do I need to do to in order to avoid this suffering I succumb to? I have recently come up with my own exercise level metric, which is that I must do activities that cause me to sweat and breath vigorously (for cardivascular exercise) or lead to some muscle fatigue (for muscle exercise).
But how much of this sort of exercise is enough? And how much is too much? To find out, I looked for some information on adquate exercise. The first site I found was what you might describe as a tough love adequate exercise site, that argued that the typically recommended amounts of adquate exercise are too ‘namby-pamby’. For instance, he argues that the ‘20 minutes of light physical activity a day’ (i.e. walking) is not enough. And, according to this guy, “the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine recommended 60 minutes or more exercise daily for preventing weight gain and achieving adequate fitness”. But what sort of exercise? And how hard? I find the whole thing confusing because runners sites clearly say that you shouldn’t over train, and that means taking at least one day off a week. And probably not running hard or long on all of the other days. So this information seems fishy and confusing to me.
Okay- Here’s something from the July 1996 Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health:
-Moderate physical activity for an average of at least 30 minutes a day at least 5 days a week. Examples include walking briskly, shoveling snow, washing and waxing your car, gardening, social dancing, stairwalking, sports, or (sic)
-Vigorous exercise (physical activity that makes you sweat and breathe hard) for at least 20 minutes at least 3 times a week.
Now, that kind
of makes sense and fits in with the running site advice. Basically that
works out to: three days of ‘sweaty exercise’ (i.e. cardio-vascular),
three days of low level (but not too low level) exercise, and one day of
no exercise, to let those muscles rebuild. Fortunately for me, it doesn’t
take me too long to reach the sweaty level. 5 minutes of jumping jacks and
I’m there!
posted at 13:54 on Fri, 17 Mar, 2006 |
path: /living
All material copyrighted by Jen Schellinck. All rights reserved.