How much exercise do you need? Criteria for judging insufficient or excessive exercise.

**How ​​much exercise do you need?**

The average lifespan of highly skilled professional athletes is shorter, which is the complete opposite of the notion that doctors also don't necessarily have long lifespans. The former suffers from excessive and intense exercise, while the latter from insufficient exercise. If they have anything in common, it's that neither knows the correct exercise methods. In fact, exercise should be consistent, but the intensity must be limited. One should neither blindly engage in excessive exercise nor exercise too little to achieve any health benefits. Moderation is key, just like balanced nutrition and balanced exercise are essential for health. Below, we'll discuss how to determine if the amount of exercise is appropriate.

Lack of exercise is the most significant cause of modern lifestyle diseases. When you don't get enough exercise, the following phenomena will occur. Do you experience any of these?

1. You are prone to feeling tired and in poor spirits during your daily life and work.

2. If you become breathless and sweat profusely after only a little exercise.

3. I feel tired easily after standing for a while or even just walking around.

4. Usually pale complexion and weak limbs.

5. Poor reaction time, prone to drowsiness.

6. Muscles are weak and flaccid, joints are degenerated, and metabolism is poor.

For most people, walking is one of the basic daily exercises. my country's Ministry of Health advocates the "Health 121 Action" with the slogan: "Walk 10,000 steps a day, balance diet and exercise, and stay healthy for life." The Chinese Nutrition Society also gives a basic requirement of 6,000 steps a day. If you can walk 6,000 steps a day, there will be no problem with maintaining basic health and physical fitness. However, to promote healthy exercise, it is better to walk about 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day and burn 1,254 to 2,090 kilojoules.

To prevent insufficient physical activity, your minimum requirement is: 3-4 hours of gentle exercise and 2-3 hours of vigorous activity per week. This is the bare minimum.

Exercise involves pushing yourself slightly beyond your physical limits each time. There is some clinical evidence that regular, moderate exercise can help with weight control and may even help prevent heart disease. "Moderate exercise" is defined as exercise that burns approximately 836 kilojoules per hour. These calories can accumulate and build up. For example, if you do 20 minutes of housework three times a week, you've already accumulated an hour of activity, burning 836 kilojoules.

Gentle exercises that can be participated in each week include:

Spend a total of 1 hour each week climbing stairs instead of taking the elevator.

To increase your weekly walking time by one hour, park your car a little further away from your destination.

Take at least one hour of walking each week.

Spend a total of 1 hour per week on gentle activities during work, such as setting up a bookshelf.

Accumulate 1 hour of gentle housework per week, such as mopping floors and cleaning windows.

Vigorous activities that can be participated in each week include:

Two to three hours of aerobic exercise per week, including brisk walking, jogging, running, cycling, or swimming. Aerobic exercise equipment, such as stationary bikes and stair climbers, also fall into this category.

Two to three hours of aerobics, moderate-intensity yoga, Pilates, etc. per week.

Competitive sports for 2-3 hours per week: basketball, volleyball, taekwondo, etc.

2-3 hours of strength training per week.

Each of the activities listed above can burn between 2926 and 4180 kilojoules per week, depending on your level of effort. Research tells us that people who burn 8360 kilojoules per week have a 50% lower risk of heart disease.

Are you overexerting yourself?

**How ​​much exercise should one do to avoid injury?** Aside from maximum heart rate, it's difficult to quantify the maximum amount and intensity of exercise a person should engage in. For example, how much weight should one lift, how fast should one run, how breathless should one be, and how long should one exercise each day-all these vary from person to person.

**Everyone should exercise at 60% to 80% of their optimal physical condition for a safe workout. Exceeding 110% to 120% of the intensity or weight, coupled with prolonged exercise, constitutes overexertion.**

Adhering to the four "don'ts" of exercise-"don't lift excessively heavy objects, don't move too fast, don't exercise for too long, and don't repeat too many times"-is the best standard for avoiding over-exercise. The following are signs of excessive exercise:

1. Muscle strength: For example, a person who can lift a maximum of 30 kg should lift 40 kg, or a person who can lift 30 kg a maximum of 10 times should lift 20 times.

2. Muscular endurance: A person who can run a maximum of 3 kilometers should be asked to run 5 kilometers, or someone who takes 30 minutes to run 3 kilometers should be asked to run 20 minutes.

3. Flexibility: Ask someone who can only bend forward to their toes to press down to the ground, or ask someone who can only do layups to dunk.

4. Cardiopulmonary function: People with a maximum heart rate of 60% should do exercises with a maximum heart rate of 70%.

5. Body fat: Overweight people suddenly doing exercises that are suitable for thin people, such as doing a lot of rope skipping or aerobic dance.

Controlling your intensity is crucial when exercising. You need to ensure you exercise at an appropriate level-enough to challenge you and achieve your exercise goals, but not to the point of exhaustion. Below are three evaluation methods for your reference. When adjusting your intensity during exercise, it's best to consider all three indicators.

1. Respiratory Index

The breathing index is divided into four levels. The recommended intensity for aerobic training is level two or three. Level one is too low, and level four indicates that you need to reduce your speed and intensity.

Level 1: Normal breathing, no discomfort.

Level 2: Rapid breathing, but able to converse normally.

Level 3: Rapid breathing, still able to talk, but with difficulty.

Level 4: Shortness of breath, sometimes accompanied by chest tightness or other discomfort.

2. Intensity of self-perception

Your perceived intensity can be represented by a scale of 1 to 10, which corresponds to your exercise intensity.

1 point status: Eating a lollipop while watching TV.

2 points: Feeling very comfortable, able to maintain this speed all day.

3/10 condition: Feeling comfortable, but breathing is a little faster.

4/5 condition: Slightly sweating, but feeling very comfortable, and able to chat effortlessly.

5 out of 10: Barely comfortable, sweating more, but still able to talk easily.

6 out of 10 condition: Can still speak, but breathing rapidly.

7 out of 10: Can speak, but really doesn't want to.

8 out of 10: Can only grunt a few times to answer questions, and can only maintain this speed for a very short period of time.

9/10 Situation: I'm about to die.

Status: Dead (out of 10)

In general, it's best to keep the intensity between 5 and 6 in most situations. If doing interval training, the highest intensity should be between 8 and 9, and the lowest between 4 and 5. As you can see, for most sports, an intensity of 10 is not recommended. For prolonged, low-speed exercise, keep it at 5 or below. By feeling the intensity yourself, you'll know when to increase the intensity. When you feel increasingly comfortable doing the same exercise, it means your physical condition has improved, and you can extend the exercise time or increase the intensity.

3. Heart rate

A normal person's heart rate should be between 60 and 90 beats per minute, which will increase during exercise. Heart rate changes vary significantly from person to person and are affected by a variety of factors such as age, gender, functional status, intensity of exercise, and body posture.

Measure your heart rate within 2 seconds of stopping exercise. Using a pre-identified pulse location as a baseline, measure the heart rate over 10 seconds. Multiply this number by 6 to get your post-exercise heart rate per minute. The maximum safe exercise heart rate = 220 - age. Generally, it's advisable to aim for 60% to 70% of your maximum safe exercise heart rate during exercise. If you are in good condition, you can gradually increase this, up to a maximum of 85%. Everything should be based on your body's tolerance, the absence of adverse reactions, and achieving the goal of healthy exercise. Generally, 60% is considered low-intensity exercise, 70% moderate-intensity exercise, and 80% high-intensity exercise.

The recovery process of heart rate after exercise is one of the important indicators for assessing physical function. Generally, after low-intensity exercise, the heart rate is 2 to 5 beats per 10 seconds faster than before exercise, 5 to 10 minutes after exercise; after high-load exercise, the heart rate is 6 to 9 beats per 10 seconds faster than before exercise, 5 to 10 minutes after exercise.

Generally, if the heart rate changes by no more than 3 beats per minute the following morning, the previous day's exercise intensity is considered appropriate. If the change exceeds 3 beats per minute, the previous day's exercise intensity may be too high, and the body's functions have not yet recovered. If, over a period of time, there are no other factors affecting heart rate changes, such as excessive emotional tension, insomnia, or excessive mental stress, and the baseline heart rate fluctuates significantly, it reflects that the exerciser is uncomfortable with the amount and intensity of exercise, or has some kind of illness.

Additionally, it's worth noting that many people dislike exercise because they believe it accelerates aging or degeneration-a completely absurd notion. The body exhibits a phenomenon called "use it or lose it," meaning that with gentle exercise, the body naturally adapts gradually. Exercise can be done like eating, in small, frequent meals-convenient and safe.

As long as the exercise adheres to the principles of gentle aerobic exercise and the correct concepts and practices are followed, excessive or prolonged exercise will not cause significant problems, especially in terms of preventing organ degeneration or overuse. This differs from the damage, significance, and consequences of strenuous exercise. For example, many centenarians in the past worked long hours and were actually healthier and more robust. We also often see elderly people in their seventies and eighties playing tennis, or those in their sixties and seventies still jogging. These examples best illustrate this point.

(1) Using intense exercises involving large muscle groups can help maintain muscle and bone strength, and also help with weight loss.

(2) At least 3 times a week of endurance exercise, each time for at least 20 to 30 minutes, and the intensity of the exercise must reach more than 60% of the maximum heart rate or more than 50% of the maximum oxygen uptake, or burn at least 1254 kJ of calories each time, in order to effectively lose weight.

(3) Balanced nutrition, mild dieting, and regular endurance exercise are the ideal way to lose weight.

(4) To maintain the weight loss effect in the long term, it is necessary to change bad eating habits and develop regular exercise habits.

(5) Long-term strict dieting or starvation is harmful to human health and should not be attempted lightly. The daily calorie intake of a normal adult should not be less than 5016 kJ.

(6) Strict dieting often leads to a large loss of water, electrolytes, minerals, glycogen and protein in the body, while fat is only slightly reduced, so it is not worth the loss.

(7) The maximum weight loss is 1 kg per week. If the daily calorie reduction is only 2090-4180 kJ, the above-mentioned disadvantages and malnutrition are less likely to occur, and therefore it is less harmful to health.

(8) Behavioral therapy or dietary changes can help correct nutritional imbalances. Dietary therapy is more likely to succeed if the following factors are considered: sociocultural background, daily habits, taste, price, and ease of access and processing.

Those who intend to lose weight should follow these suggestions to implement a weight loss plan to ensure both safety and effectiveness.

In addition, here is a principle for effective exercise for your reference:

(1) Exercise three to four times a week, every other day, such as Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.

(2) Each exercise session lasts 30 to 40 minutes and can be divided into two rounds, with rest or gentle exercise in between.

(3) Each exercise intensity should be between 60% and 80% of the effective range of the highest heart rate.

High-intensity exercise: Each round of exercise should last 15 to 20 minutes, such as aerobic exercise, rhythmic dance, running, or skipping rope.

Moderate exercise: 20-30 minutes each time, such as skating, basketball, tennis, climbing stairs, etc.

Light exercise: 30-40 minutes each time, such as brisk walking, exercise bike, swimming, etc.

(4) Each exercise session should consume 1254 to 2090 kilojoules of energy.

(5) Each exercise session should aim to improve muscle strength, muscle endurance, flexibility, cardiopulmonary function, and burn body fat.

(6) Each exercise session should involve a balanced full-body workout rather than a localized workout.

(7) Each exercise session should conform to the principle of overload, and should be slightly heavier, slightly faster, and result in sweating.

(8) After each exercise session, the exerciser should feel mentally and physically relaxed, rather than feeling sore and tired.

Generally, burning 32,186 kilojoules of energy can lead to a weight loss of approximately 1 kilogram. Therefore, if you burn an extra 1,254 kilojoules of energy through exercise each day, it will take about 25 days to lose 1 kilogram. If you also control your diet and reduce your food intake by 1,254 kilojoules daily, you can lose 1 kilogram in half a month. Therefore, exercise combined with a proper diet is the most effective way to lose weight.

People who exercise regularly have a higher basal metabolic rate than the average person. Therefore, they burn more calories whether they are working, living in their daily lives, or even sleeping, making it less likely for them to gain weight.

**Because measuring calorie expenditure using calories is rather technical and abstract, sports nutrition experts use the concept of 1,000 steps in 10 minutes of moderate-speed walking as "1 foot," and have proposed the concepts of 1,000-step equivalent and 1,000-step equivalent time.**

**A thousand steps is equivalent to walking 1,000 steps at a speed of 4 kilometers per hour.** Performing squats for 4 minutes is equivalent to walking 1,000 steps at 4 kilometers per hour. The time required to complete 1,000 steps is the equivalent activity level. Of course, energy expenditure isn't solely determined by walking; it can be calculated as follows: mopping the floor for 8 minutes, looking after a child for 13 minutes, standing and lecturing for 20 minutes, or ironing clothes for 15 minutes-the energy expenditure of these household chores and work tasks is equivalent to walking 1,000 steps at a moderate pace. For example, eating one fried dough stick requires at least 13,568 steps at a moderate pace to burn off the energy it provides.