Hello BBM,
I’m just trying to understand better if I am meeting the conditioning guidelines.
Right now I’m getting a minimum of 10,000 steps a day (15-20k a couple times a week if the weather is nice), but I am only able to do dedicated cardio four times a week.
Using this week as an example. I did 30 minutes of cardio four times for 120 minutes. Less than the 150 minimum.
However, I did 30 minutes of incline walking on day one (average heart rate of 132), 30 minutes of rowing on day 2 (average rate of 122), and on day three and four I did 16 minutes each of rowing (in the 120s) and 14 minutes each of an HIIT on an air bike (average of 143 with peaks of 160).
So this comes out to 92 minutes of moderate conditioning and 28 minutes of vigorous.
On your GPP for lifters article you put it another way, 500-1000 MET minutes. I’m tracking heart rate and steps with a Fitbit, and they don’t do METs, they so Active Zone Minutes which you can’t really convert.
If I put incline walking down as 6 METs, rowing as 5 METs, and the air bike as 8, I’m hitting 896 MET minutes a week.
Am I doing this right, or am I missing something?
For context I’m 38 and my peak heart rate should be around 187. My resting is 48-56 depending on the day.
David,
Thanks for the post. I am genuinely impressed with how much interest there seems to be around getting enough conditioning in within our lifting-foucsed niche. Very cool to see!
To me, days 1 and 2 (60 min total) are moderate intensity, as was day 3 (16 min), for a total of 76-min moderate intensity conditioning. Then, day 4 was vigorous for a total of 14 minutes.
Here’s my accounting for your weekly physical activity that could be considered conditioning:
- ~4000 “extra” steps per day outside of normal occupational and household activities. Probably not at sufficient intensity to count as conditioning for you unless very brisk pace. Still net positive though for health, for sure.
*76-minutes of moderate intensity conditioning (likely ~ 5 METs for these activities)= 380 MET-min
- 14 minutes HIIT (vigorous ~ 8 MET-min) = 112 MET-min
So, you have ~ 492 MET-min (ish) from conditioning. Seems about right for the minimum target. I’d love more volume, specifically of moderate intensity conditioning, but I acknowldege that time is precious limited.
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To clarify. Day three and four are the same. Rowing for 16 minutes followed by 14 minutes on the air bike on the same day.
But regardless. Thank you for the feedback! It looks like I am doing “enough”, from the stand poing of doing the bare minimum.