Exercise Guidelines

Deirdre Gamill Hock

Personal Trainer
Specializing in Mid-Life and Older Adults
Lifestyle and Weight Management Coach
Nutrition Specialist

Exercise Guidelines

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the American Heart Association (AHA) have updated physical activity guidelines. These guidelines outline exercise recommendations for healthy adults and older adults and are an update from the 1995 guidelines. Choose your category below, and find recommendations, research and tips from ACSM and AHA. Together, we are proud to serve as a public resource to help people live healthier, more active lives.

Guidelines for healthy adults
under age 65

Basic recommendations from ACSM and AHA:

Do moderately intense cardio 30 minutes a day, five days a week
Or
Do vigorously intense cardio 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week
And
Do eight to 10 strength-training exercises, eight to 12 repetitions of each exercise twice a week.

Moderate-intensity physical activity means working hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat, yet still being able to carry on a conversation. It should be noted that to lose weight or maintain weight loss, 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity may be necessary. The 30-minute recommendation is for the average healthy adult to maintain health and reduce the risk for chronic disease.

Tips for Meeting the Guidelines
With busy work schedules, family obligations, and packed weekends, it can often be difficult to get the recommended amount of physical activity. Try these tips for incorporating exercise into your life:

Do it in short bouts. Research shows that moderate-intensity physical activity can be accumulated throughout the day in 10-minute bouts, which can be just as effective as exercising for 30 minutes straight. This can be useful when trying to fit physical activity into a busy schedule.

Mix it up. Combinations of moderate- and vigorous-intensity physical activity can be used to meet the guidelines. For example, you can walk briskly for 30 minutes twice per week and jog at a higher intensity on two other days.

Set your schedule. Maybe it’s easier for you to walk during your lunch hour, or perhaps hitting the pavement right after dinner is best for you. The key is to set aside specific days and times for exercise, making it just as much a regular part of your schedule as everything else.

The gym isn’t a necessity. It doesn’t take an expensive gym membership to get the daily recommended amount of physical activity. A pair of athletic shoes and a little motivation are all you need to live a more active, healthier life.

Make it a family affair. Take your spouse, your children, or a friend with you during exercise to add some fun to your routine. This is also a good way to encourage your kids to be physically active and get them committed early to a lifetime of health.

Starting an exercise program
Starting an exercise program can sound like a daunting task, but just remember that your main goal is to boost your health by meeting the basic physical activity recommendations: 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity at least five days per week, or vigorous-intensity activity at least three days per week, and strength training at least twice per week.

Choose activities you enjoy, such as swimming, biking, or playing basketball with friends to get your daily physical activity. If you need variety of activities to stay motivated, combine a few that appeal to you.

Physical activity can be accumulated through a variety of activities, not just running. Walking is a great way to do moderate-intensity physical activity.

Read the healthy adults manuscript

Guidelines for adults over age 65
(or adults 50-64 with chronic conditions, such as arthritis)

Basic recommendations from ACSM and AHA:

Do moderately intense aerobic exercise 30 minutes a day, five days a week
Or
Do vigorously intense aerobic exercise 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week
And
Do eight to 10 strength-training exercises, 10-15 repetitions of each exercise twice to three times per week
And
If you are at risk of falling, perform balance exercises
And
Have a physical activity plan.

Both aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity is critical for healthy aging. Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise means working hard at about a level-six intensity on a scale of 10. You should still be able to carry on a conversation during exercise.

Older adults or adults with chronic conditions should develop an activity plan with a health professional to manage risks and take therapeutic needs into account. This will maximize the benefits of physical activity and ensure your safety.

Key points to the guidelines for older adults
Although the guidelines for older adults and adults with chronic conditions are similar to those for younger adults, there are a few key differences and points to consider.

Start, and get help if you need it. The general recommendation is that older adults should meet or exceed 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on most days of the week; however, it is also recognized that goals below this threshold may be necessary for older adults who have physical impairments or functional limitations.

Functional health is an important benefit of physical activity for older adults. Physical activity contributes to the ease of doing everyday activities, such as gardening, walking or cleaning the house.

Strength training is extremely important. Strength training is important for all adults, but especially so for older adults, as it prevents loss of muscle mass and bone, and is beneficial for functional health.

If you can exceed the minimum recommendations, do it! The minimum recommendations are just that: the minimum needed to maintain health and see fitness benefits. If you can exceed the minimum, you can improve your personal fitness, improve management of an existing disease or condition, and reduce your risk for health conditions and mortality.

Flexibility is also important. Each day you perform aerobic or strength-training activities, take an extra 10 minutes to stretch the major muscle and tendon groups, with 10-30 seconds for each stretch. Repeat each stretch three to four times. Flexibility training will promote the ease of performing everyday activities.

Starting an exercise program
Starting an exercise program can sound like a daunting task, but just remember that your main goal is to meet the basic physical activity recommendations: 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity at least five days per week, or vigorous-intensity activity at least three days per week, and strength training two to three times per week.

Choose activities that appeal to you and will make exercise fun. Walking is a great, easy way to do moderate-intensity physical activity.

Read the older adults manuscript

Improvements from the 1995 recommendation

Although the 2007 recommendations are similar to the 1995 recommendations at the core, eight improvements have been made:

1. Moderate-intensity physical activity has been clarified.
The 1995 document simply specified “most, preferably all days per week” as the recommended frequency while the new recommendation identifies five days per week as the recommended minimum.

2. Vigorous-intensity physical activity has been explicitly incorporated into the recommendation.
To acknowledge both the preferences of some adults for vigorous-intensity physical activity and the substantial science base related to participation in such activity, the recommendation has been clarified to encourage participation in either moderate- and/or vigorous-intensity physical activity. Vigorous-intensity physical activity was implicit in the 1995 recommendation. It is now explicitly an integral part of the physical activity recommendation.

3. Specified: Moderate- and vigorous-intensity activities are complementary in the production of health benefits and that a variety of activities can be combined to meet the recommendation.
This combining of activities is based on the amount (intensity x duration) of activity performed during the week and uses the concept of METs (metabolic equivalents) to assign an intensity value to a specific activity.

4. Specified: Aerobic activity needed is in addition to routine activities of daily life.
The updated recommendation now clearly states that the recommended amount of aerobic activity (whether of moderate- or vigorous-intensity) is in addition to routine activities of daily living which are of light intensity, such as self care, casual walking or grocery shopping, or less than 10 minutes of duration such as walking to the parking lot or taking out the trash. Few activities in contemporary life are conducted routinely at a moderate intensity for at least 10 minutes in duration. However, moderate- or vigorous-intensity activities performed as a part of daily life (e.g., brisk walking to work, gardening with shovel, carpentry) performed in bouts of 10 minutes or more can be counted towards the recommendation. Although implied, this concept was not effectively communicated in the original recommendation.

5. “More is better.”
The new recommendation emphasizes the important fact that physical activity above the recommended minimum amount provides even greater health benefits. The point of maximum benefit for most health benefits has not been established but likely varies with genetic endowment, age, sex, health status, body composition and other factors. Exceeding the minimum recommendation further reduces the risk of inactivity-related chronic disease. Although the dose-response relation was acknowledged in the 1995 recommendation, this fact is now explicit.

6. Short bouts of exercise.
Although the original recommendation introduced the concept of accumulating short bouts of physical activity toward the 30-minute goal, there was confusion regarding how short these episodes could be. For consistency and clarity, the minimum length of these short bouts is clarified as being 10 minutes.

7. Muscle-strengthening recommendation now included.
Muscle-strengthening activities have now been incorporated into the physical activity recommendation. Although the 1995 recommendation mentioned the importance of muscular strength and endurance, it stopped short of making specific declarations in this area. Available evidence now allows the integration of muscle strengthening activities into the core recommendation.

8. Clarification in wording.
Minor wording changes in the recommendation have been made to enhance clarity in communications. For example, the term “aerobic,” or endurance, has been added to clarify the type of physical activity being recommended and to differentiate it from muscle-strengthening exercises, which are now part of the core recommendation.