Physical activity guidelines: what do you do?

[yorkie]

Physical activity guidelines for adults aged 19 to 64

General health and fitness guidelines for adults aged 19 to 64, including tips on how to achieve 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week.

www.nhs.uk

Adults should aim to:

• do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity a week...

You can also achieve your weekly activity target with:

• several short sessions of very vigorous intensity activity
• a mix of moderate, vigorous and very vigorous intensity activity

Examples of moderate intensity activities include:

• brisk walking
• water aerobics
• riding a bike
• dancing
• doubles tennis
• pushing a lawn mower
• hiking
• rollerblading

Examples of vigorous activities include:

• running
• swimming
• riding a bike fast or on hills
• walking up the stairs
• sports, like football, rugby, netball and hockey
• skipping
• aerobics
• gymnastics
• martial arts

Examples of very vigorous activities include:

• lifting heavy weights
• circuit training
• sprinting up hills
• interval running
• running up stairs
• spinning classes

What moderate/vigerous activities do you do, and do you think you reach the minimum?

In most regular working weeks of the year, I do about 5 hours of moderate aerbobic activity each week, plus 2 hours of vigerous activity each week. This is not including any walking (which would only count if it is brisk walking) and there will be some weeks when it could be as much as 6 + 3. However there are some weeks of the year when I would do very little, especially if I am away, but in those weeks I'd still be active to a some extent by walking at least.

My main activities are football (vigerous if playing and moderate if coaching) and cycling (moderate) but I'd be interested to hear what others do.

 

[THC]

I'm in my early 50s and have walked 65 miles this week (about 20 hours or so) and usually average about 50 in a normal week. I walk to think and to keep my sanity. It helps me massively with managing my mental health as I have a stressful job. That's about the only form of exercise I take however. I was a gym bunny in my early 40s on top but that has fallen by the wayside in recent years.

THC

 

[baz962]

I don't do nearly enough. Also quite gutted to see that walking has to be brisk as my walking isn't very brisk and is the only exercise I get.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

My walking can sometimes be brisk when I need it to be.
So maybe 15 minutes a week on average.

The more I think on this the lower that number gets.

 

[dangie]

Luckily, and I do think I’m lucky, I’ve always been interested in sport, both taking part and spectating. I enjoy physical exercise. I’m now 72 and still cycle at least 2/3 times a week. I only live one mile from Cannock Chase so that’s perfect for mountain biking. We always take our holidays in walking areas e.g. Lake District, Snowdonia in the UK and the Alps & Dolomites. Lying on a beach we’d be bored out of our brains within five minutes.

 

[Hadders]

I walk an average of 10,000 steps every day. I don't always manage 10,000 every day but I do make sure I average it across the week. I also did couch to 5k about 4 years ago and try and run 6k at least once a week, more often if time allows.

 

[507021]

At the moment, not as much as I'd like. I walk the dog each morning and join a friend in Chester for a walk once a week, which is usually several miles long and sometimes includes a short section or two of light jogging. Once I've moved there, we're planning to meet twice a week and once my fitness has improved sufficiently, I'm also hoping to join my friend for their daily morning run as well. I'm considering purchasing a bicycle again, but I haven't decided yet. Improving my fitness, diet and losing a decent amount of weight are key goals for me this year.

 

[scarby]

Brisk walking, probably around 7 hours a week.

Plus play indoor and outdoor sport for about 60-90 minutes nearly every week year-round.

 

[gordonthemoron]

At the moment I’m doing nothing as I’ve broken my ankle, but usually I do about 3.5 hours swimming and 1.5 hours cycling

 

[deltic]

Given knackered knees my exercise is limited to walking. Not sure how brisk is defined but I average around 10000 steps a day but still get out of breath walking up a few flights of stairs.

 

[dangie]

Depending on the weather I’ll try and exercise (usually cycling) on a Wednesday & Saturday. Those are the evenings I go to the pub, so I feel I can have a beer with a clear conscience

 

[birchesgreen]

I walk every day, usually early on, with longer laps at the weekend. According to my app i have averaged 4836 steps a day over the last year.

 

[dangie]

Depending on the weather, if it’s bad we replace the cycling with Joe Wicks. Usually this one:

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Walking, on good weather Saturdays in the summer. Maximum range around 10 miles.

Other than that, I walk to work but it's only 5 - 10 minutes each way. Probably do quite a bit of walking while out and about on the trains, though.

Other than that - I don't do any exercise...

 

[jmh59]

Waaaay too little. I used to manage 10,000 steps per day but since I retired it's only 10,000 one day a week when I am on the railway.

Mind you, it gives an example of vigorous activity as walking up stairs and then says "If you're working at this level, you will not be able to say more than a few words without pausing for breath." Damn. When I was working I could charge up 5 flights and still talk happily. I can still walk fast up the hill here and have no issues talking.

 

[ainsworth74]

I normally manage around 3 miles of walking Monday to Friday as that's the distance I walk to/from the station to get to/from work. Which I always try and do briskly (especially in this weather!). So that's around fifty/sixty minutes of walking. On the weekend I'll do another 10 or so miles across Saturday/Sunday. Obviously that will depend on what I'm doing, this weekend I was away in London so didn't get anywhere near that level of walking in. But typically that's what I do so I think I exceed the physical activity guidelines!

 

[Jamiescott1]

Mid 40s.
Last week was average and my strava says I did.
85km cycling
63km running at various paces including a few speed sessions and a 30km run
Quite a lot of walking - about 5km a day (i don't record walks less than 5km on stravA)

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

Swimming four times a week (just over 1k on each occasion) which in total adds up to around 2.25 hrs a week.
Walking - as much as I can! I'm in my late 60's, having retired at the end of 2010 I vouched to walk more, as my job was office, car (latterly quite a lot more on the train) but
still quite sedentary. However after a few years I realised I was falling into bad habits, apart from some major hill-walking expeditions with a friend (only about 4 per year) I had started
to use the car for journeys that were eminently walkable.
Then along came lockdown, the pool was obviously closed and I took to rediscovering the local area. I'm lucky that I live on the edge of Eryri and so all walks are pretty spectacular.
They're generally not major walks, but I've developed a knowledge of how long a different route will take me eg direct route to the library and back - about 30mins, but I can extend that my taking different paths if I so wish
Also, a couple of years ago my partner bought me a fitbit - neither asked for or wanted really - but in spite of that I have embraced the thing and always (or nearly always) do 10000
steps a day, despite the wet weather we have here.
I was never very 'sporty'...playing Cricket was the onlyteam game that I enjoyed, I really don't mind either walking on my own.

 

[JohnMcL7]

I do a reasonable amount of walking each day although intensity wise my main activity wise is cycling which is a mix of getting where I need to be, leisure road/off road cycling and now indoor cycling. I took up the indoor cycling during covid when I couldn't get out on group rides through the winter and was worried about losing fitness, while I always rubbished the idea it's been extremely useful plus from an intensity point of view I can go far harder than outdoors.

As mentioned above though the physical benefits are a side effect and the cycling is primarily for my mental health which I find it's fantastic for.

 

[Exscrew]

Play tennis twice a week and some running if my feet allow it

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Well so far today, I (late 50s) have cycled a 25 mile round trip to meet a friend and go to a jazz dance class, and then did a weights-workout when I got home. So I think I probably do enough

I don't do nearly enough. Also quite gutted to see that walking has to be brisk as my walking isn't very brisk and is the only exercise I get.

Well walking not (yet) being brisk enough is easy to fix. With the bonus that you then save time and get to wherever you wanted to be faster

 

[dangie]

This could go in the ‘Things that irritate’ thread but as it’s to do with exercise I’ll put it here.

I’m sure we all have friends or relatives who take absolutely no exercise. I’m not talking about those who can’t for whatever reason, but those who simply don’t want to. That’s absolutely ok, it’s their choice.

As a group we often organise trips out. What irritates me is that top of the criteria is that there must be little walking involved, both for distance and steps to be climbed. In other words very little physical effort. Many of our ideas are dismissed as they don’t fulfill this criteria.

’It’s ok for you’ they say, You’re fit….’
It doesn’t go well when we suggest that if they got off their ar*es a bit more and did some exercise then maybe they could be a bit fitter.

 

[maniacmartin]

I don’t do as much as I should, especially in winter. It’s very easy to get caught up with work and not want to go out on dark nights.

At the moment it’s 80 minutes brisk walking every other day, split in 20 minute sections as part of commuting. Every other Saturday I also walk at least 10 miles.

I do live in a three storey house though so get my fair share of staircases in!

In summer I probably swim a mile (50mins) and knock out a 15-20 mile cycle every 1-2 weeks.

Edit: I also refuse to take any motorised transport for any journey wholly in zone 1, or less than a mile in length, except when I have luggage.

 

[Puffing Devil]

Dog walking at least 30, up to 120 minutes/day, every day.

 

[yorkie]

I see no-one has replied mentioning football; is there anyone reading this who plays football, at all, including simply casually/recreationally?

...’It’s ok for you’ they say, You’re fit….’
It doesn’t go well when we suggest that if they got off their ar*es a bit more and did some exercise then maybe they could be a bit fitter.

It's a "chicken and egg" scenario unfortunately.

While I understand people can't go from zero exercise to suddenly doing loads overnight, it is something that people can build up to do.

I don’t do as much as I should, especially in winter. It’s very easy to get caught up with work and not want to go out on dark nights...

True. That's where it can be good to do a job where you get paid to run around for a few hours a week

 

[westv]

I don't walk as much as I should but have started to do some "stair exercise" - climbing the stairs at home 10 times x 4 times a day. = 240 steps up/down x 4