What the changes in the Fed's Exercise Guidelines mean for you

The new exercise and physical activity guidelines issued by the US federal government’s Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion are better tailored for age and ability. Importantly, they also now take into consideration the intensity of activity, and not just a blanket generalisation of "moderate activity". This is the biggest difference which will most change the potential impact of the new guidelines as compared to the old.

This move to recognise intensity is a very useful change. Previously the recommendations focused people on spending a certain amount of time exercising, including the caveat that spending less than 10 minutes at any one time was not worthwhile. The new guidelines base your dose of physical activity on relative intensity: how much effort a given exercise takes compared with your capacity for exercise. ​They also recognise that short bouts of exercise can be useful - "what really is important is the total amount of physical activity you accumulate during the day and the week".

Personally I think that the recognition of intensity of exercise is well overdue, for at least the following reasons:

• The SAID Principle - Specific Adaption to Imposed Demand means that unless intensity is increased that not "progressing" - not increasing intensity - leads to relatively less benefit as time goes on;
• Progression is the key to fitness of all types e.g. stamina, strength and endurance;
• Achieving new levels of intensity provides satisfaction, and hence motivation; and,
• Recognising "intensity" starts to get people to understand that while all movement and activity is good, it is not exercise or training. A walk with your dog each day is good, but it is not going to build your bone density or lower your body age.

If you want to move from activity to fitness, then you have to make intensity part of the journey.

That is one reason I developed my Nine Levels of Fitness - to illustrate the progression from Activity to Exercise to Training and beyond. This progression requires intensity. It is nice to walk with the dog every day, and all activity and movement is good. But, the effect on your fitness, lifespan and body age is minimal unless you progress up the scale. My levels progress from:

• Movement / Gentle Activity; to,
• Exercise; to,
• Training; to,
• Sports Elite Athlete

That's M-E-T-S and fits nicely with the Metabolic Equivalents Scale (METS). Exercise experts measure activity in metabolic equivalents, or METs. One MET is defined as the energy it takes to sit quietly. If you are training (Level 5) then you are burning 9 to 12 times the energy of gentle activity. 

To build stamina you need to move to a level of training, where you develop your body awareness and place healthy stress on your muscular and cardiovascular system. As you train at higher levels of intensity, you can achieve better results in less time than at lower levels, and also build a higher resting metabolic rate.

The new guidelines are helpful because they stimulate discussion about the role of intensity in achieving health and fitness goals.

To learn about key messages in the Physical Activity Guidelines, read Top 10 Things to Know.

​Any questions? Message me.

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