Garmin Intensity Minutes vs Physical Activity Guidelines

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello,

I use a Garmin watch to track my cardio activities. It has a feature for tracking “Intensity Minutes” which is calculated based on heart rate. I try to aim for 150 intensity minutes per week. Is this enough to meet the Physical Activity Guidelines?

For reference, it tends to count anything between 110-125 bpm as moderate activity and anything above 125bpm as vigorous activity with minutes in vigorous activity getting counted twice. Over a week this generally translates to about 30 minutes of light elliptical/treadmill with heart rate around 120-130, and 60 minutes of moderate elliptical/treadmill with heart rate around 140.

Thanks.

2

If your 150 “intensity minutes” translates to 90-minutes of conditioning activity, then no, this would not be enough.

The guidelines minimums recommend 75 to150-minutes of vigorous activity or 500 to 1000 MET-minutes. You’re probably getting in ~400-450 or so. Pretty close, but I’d advise a bit more and not rely on the watch for this.