Activity Guidelines

Hello guys

Couple questions regarding physical activity guidelines.

  1. You are saying that you would like folks to meet and/or exceed the activity guidelines. Does this mean the lower end 150/75 or the higher end 300/150 of activity guidelines?

  2. For moderate intesity cardio should i count things like household chores/washing cars/construction work (I’m doing all of these) also should zone 1 cardio be included in moderate intesity guidelines?

  3. In a post Jordan said “you can’t do a high level of endurance work and be the strongest version yourself (which makes sense) but you should be able to meet the activity guidelines and be fine”. Does this mean I can do things like running/rope skipping/cross train in another sport as long as Im within the activity guidelines and my performance wont be affected?

Valle,

Thanks for the post.

We would want people to exceed the higher end of the activity guidelines, which are two times per week resistance training AND 1000-MET-minutes/300 minutes of moderate to vigorous/150 minutes of vigorous conditioning. In other words, lift more than twice per week and do more than 1000 MET-minutes/wk of conditioning.

None of those things would likely count as conditioning exercise, no.

I do not think doing the guideline-recommended level of conditioning will hamper your strength performance at all. Things likely change when undertaking much higher volumes of training in either discipline.

-Jordan

Thanks for your answers. One last question should I count zone 3 cardio as moderate or vigorous intensity?

Hey Valle,

In both the 3- and 5-zone models used for conditioning, zone 3 would be considered vigorous. We discuss this extensively and give some practical recommendations on conditioning here: