What Counts as Physical Activity?
Any activity that raises your heart rate or causes you to breathe faster counts as physical activity, even everyday household chores. From doing yard work to taking a dance class or biking to the store- all types of activities count!
The term intensity refers to how hard your body is working during aerobic activity. The talk test is a simple way to measure relative intensity. As a rule of thumb, if you’re doing moderate-intensity activity you are able to talk, but not sing, during the activity. If you’re doing vigorous-intensity activity, you will not be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath.
A rule of thumb is that one minute of vigorous-intensity activity is about the same as two minutes of moderate-intensity activity. Some people like to do vigorous types of activity because it gives them about the same health benefits in half the time. For example, if you only have 15 minutes of time to be active you can increase your intensity level and reap the benefits as if you did that activity for 30 minutes at your normal intensity level. That is a great incentive to pick up the pace or push a little harder for a shorter amount of time. Sometimes we only feel like we have 15 minutes to devote to being active and increasing your intensity is a way to get more out of that time.
Even if you are doing higher intensity movement for 1 minute, your efforts contribute to your health. Every minute counts! #MoveYourWay
