How much exercise do you reckon you should do per week?
The NHS website recommends the following;
– do strengthening activities that work all the major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms) on at least 2 days a week
– do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity a week
– spread exercise evenly over 4 to 5 days a week, or every day
– reduce time spent sitting or lying down and break up long periods of not moving with some activity
Which is a perfectly fine amount to have in mind.
A good guideline to work to.
The problem usually arises when with what then happens when we don’t feel we can do that.
If we do what we can under the circumstances, we’ll make forward progress, just slower than we might ideally like.
If we don’t do anything we’ll slowly slip backwards.
And what usually underpins not doing any exercise at all, is a belief that a lesser amount is “not worth doing”.
It is, of course, true that (all else being equal) three 60 minute workouts per week will be more beneficial than two 10 minute ones.
3 x 60 > 2 x10
But……..
0 x 60 < 2 x 10 0 x 60 < 1 x 30 And so on. Any exercise will have a degree of physical benefit. Maybe not enough to get us in The Olympics, sure. But enough to make forward progress (or turn regression into maintenance that week)............... And............ More importantly........... Enough to change that conversation in our head. From "I've stopped and I've got to start again next week"............. To "slow down and speed up a circumstance dictates. 1 x 45 this week is way more likely to lead to 3 x 45 next week than 0 x 45 is. And I'm fairly confident that if we only did 10 minutes we'd do more than one sixth of what we'd do in an hour. We'd go for it a bit more. You could argue that 3 x 10 = 1 x 60. Much love, Jon 'Pet Insurance' Hall P.S. Many of our members have struggled to get any number of regular workouts in per work for a consistent period of time. Then find themselves happily doing three a week with us. Reply with 'Great' to find out more about how we can help with that. ------------------------------------------------------------------- RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don't like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
