How Much Exercise Per Week is Necessary
Manny and Anthony got this discussion going yesterday and I think it needs further exploration…and that is how much exercise should we be doing per week?
Exercise shouldn't be a sentence to pain and suffering
There are a few ways to approach the answer to this question.
The first thing to do is identify your goal.
Is it to do the least amount of exercise possible while getting into the best looking shape possible?
Is it the above mentioned goal as well as minimizing as many risks factors of disease as possible?
Is it some performance goal (like running a certain distance in a given time, or a strength goal etc?)
Is it some combination of the above?
In any case it seems that many people have come to believe that you can do far less work than you have to in order to get into your goal shape.
I think this is a symptom of the modern industrialized sedentary society. For many of us our daily routine barely requires us to even stand up let alone walk around.
If you spend the better part of your day sitting then there is a good case to be made for you to workout or at least go for a walk every day. At least move around a bit.
I think we’ve all become a bit too accustomed to a really sedentary lifestyle. And as Manny and Anthony pointed out even as little as 7-8 hours per WEEK sounds like alot of exercise…this seems a bit ridiculous…out of 168 available hours in a week does dedicating 8 of them to exercise and improving the look and health of your body sound like too much?
If it does sound like too much that is an artifact of the general busyness and sedentary nature of our societies and nothing to do with fundamental physiological principles.
We could all easily exercise for multiple hours per day if we had enough time. I totally understand that a 2 hour workout every day might not make much sense for everyone. But at least an hour of movement per day should be a bare minimum.
And then mixed within that could be 3-4 more intense and targeted training sessions to force muscle growth and adaptation.
The reality is that Anthony and Manny pointed out how far off our perception of what a realistic amount of exercise per week should be.
I think we’ve all become far too used to doing far too little.
If we learn to prioritize a mix of both targeted vigorous exercise (weight training/running etc) and general lifestyle movement (walking) as something that must be done every day then we’d be close to what our bodies were built for in the first place and many of our lifestyle disorders, issues with eating and dealing with stress would be much less of a problem.
John
12 Responses to “How Much Exercise Per Week is Necessary”
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March 29th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
I think a lot of people also underestimate the psychological benefits of long duration low intensity exercise. I find there’s nothing better for stress relief than going for a brisk walk. I’m sure it’s also helped me be more productive when working.
March 29th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
They probably thought you meant 7-8 hours of vigorous activity, like weight lifting. But you’re saying that 3-4 vigorous workouts (45-60 minutes each?) per week are sufficient, plus walking and other general activities.
Three 45 minute workouts plus seven 45 minute walks per week would be 7.5 hours per week. That’s perfectly reasonable.
I do 2-3 workouts/ week, 25-40 minutes each, plus 40-45 minutes of walking per day, so I guess I’m not too far off. I’m at maybe 6 hours per week. Although I presume that my workouts aren’t as intense as other folks.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
I don’t know how much is necessary. I average around 14 hours per week of vigorous activity between weight lifting, cardio workouts and playing soccer. To me, all of that stuff is FUN. I don’t really look at it in terms of “work.”
To me, that’s the key. It’s just like having a job. If you have a job you enjoy, you’ll never work a day in your life, so the saying goes. The same goes for exercise. If you find something you enjoy doing, you’ll never look at exercise as work again.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Andrew,
You’ve just hit on the crux of the matter. Exercising and activity shouldn’t feel like ‘work’. And if you enjoy it, you’ll most likely try to do as much of it as you can.
We had this all figured out when we were kids, and somehow we’ve forgotten how to play as adults.
JB
March 29th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Andrew,
Since you exercise so much, how is your diet going? Do you pay attention to it much. I assume that anybody who puts in a solid 2 hours a day of exercise DOES NOT HAVE TO HARD FOCUS ON THE DIET. What a peaceful world that would be: to not give any thought to your diet. By the way, I envy anyone who put in that much exercise time and loves every minute of it.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
JB,
You and Andrew make excellent points. We seem to have sucked the idea of ‘fun’ right out of exercise and play, to the point where we use words like ‘working’ out. And yes, kids do indeed get it. Remember the endless days of road hockey, football, soccer (and some days all 3) or whatever else we could think of to do outside with our friends when we were kids?
I would also say that they get eating too. My 3 year old will eat pretty much what’s in front of him, no matter what it is (within reason) until he’s full. When he’s had enough, he pushes his plate away and says ‘I’m full daddy’ or ‘no more’. And that’s it. He feels hungry, so he eats, then he’s not hungry anymore, so he stops. It’s really that simple. Kids just don’t typically stuff themselves to nausea the way adults do (at least not kids that young), and they certainly don’t have all the psychological baggage associated with food. We can learn so much from our children, its amazing.
March 29th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Cooper has a good point. I walk in my local park which is 5 miles in total. I try to get out there on Saturdays because it’s the weekend, it’s during my active rest period and I get to reflect on the week I had and the week in front of me.
March 29th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Al -
I’m not sure how to address the question, because it’s tricky. I generally have extremely low bodyfat all year long. But it can still get out of control, especially around the holidays, and my in-laws’ penchant for delicious pies and cakes. It takes far less time to ingest an extra 1,000 calories than it does to burn them off. I usually have to do more fasting and calorie restriction in January than any other time of year.
As for day-to-day eating, I try to keep it around 1500-1800 (1800 is my BMR) calories or so. I do this because I know I’ll inevitably eat 2-3 extremely high calorie meals sometime during the week. The wife and I have been known to polish off half a gallon of milk and an entire package of Double Stuf Oreos in one sitting (she’s about as active as I am, averaging about 10 hours per week of exercise). This past weekend, we ate many pancakes for breakfast, homemade bacon, egg and cheese biscuits for lunch, and pasta with lots of heavy sauce for dinner. I don’t know how many calories it was, but it was a lot. Definitely more than I burned.
But we can get away with eating whatever we want over the weekends because we do watch portions during the rest of the week. I won’t deny that being so active allows a lot more flexibility with food intake, but if we simply ate whatever we wanted all the time, we’d still get fat. And yeah, it’s hard to fight those cravings for bigger portions during the week, which is why I like IF so much. It’s easier to ignore them when you know that you’re not going to be eating anything, anyway.
March 29th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
I’m 33 years old. I exercise twice per week for 1.5 hours. I dead lift sets of 5 with 285 lbs, bench press 295 lbs and can do 24 pull-ups. I weigh 153 lbs and am close to my target weight of 149 lbs. If I try to exercise much more than I do, my body starts to ache and my workouts suffer. For me, less is more.
March 30th, 2010 at 11:37 am
John:
I think my point is that part of why Americans are fat is that we work more hours than other industrialized nations, this is a fact. I work 50 hours a week. Add in commutes and getting ready for work , and you could argue that some days works takes up 12 of my 16 waking hours. Now find time for family / friends/ food and just errandry like hygiene / cleaning and also entertainment, for most people where are those hours going to come from?
March 30th, 2010 at 11:42 am
BTW I would say the most important thing you can have in your life is a significant other who also works out. This wreaked havoc on my body and my relationship when I dated one who didn’t. If I went to gym, that’s two hours less quality time (adding getting ready / commute / shower after) in hour packed schedules. If I didn’t go, I became fat as well.
January 15th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
[...] per week of exercise). I would also say that they get eating too. My 3 year old will eat pretty Much what’s in front of him, no matter what it is (within reason) until he’s full. When [...]