I saw one of your Q&A’s from a couple of years ago on Youtube where you state that for general health purposes, if someone meets a minimum threshold of cardiovascular fitness, there is no need for dedicated cardio training to reduce health risks. The threshold given in the Q&A was 8 METs. I found a chart that says that’s equal to jogging in place or doing jumping jacks. I’m still not getting how to measure that capacity though. Do you need to be able to do it for a certain length of time? Or without raising your heart rate past a certain threshold?
Also I realize this is an old video and I think I may have heard a recent podcast where you mentioned this as something you changed your mind on, but I haven’t been able to find that.
That’s not what I said, but I understand what you’re getting at
Our current thinking is that the minimum threshold for reduced health risks secondary to lack of conditioning is ~8 METS, but that there’s a dose-response effect for attaining higher and higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness and health improvements. Though this is not a linear relationship, we do think that most would benefit from engaging in regular aerobic training.
The threshold given in the Q&A was 8 METs. I found a chart that says that’s equal to jogging in place or doing jumping jacks. I’m still not getting how to measure that capacity though. Do you need to be able to do it for a certain length of time? Or without raising your heart rate past a certain threshold?
The cut point is for a met-minute, meaning you have to attain that level of metabolic output for 1 minute. The current physical activity guidelines also recommend 500-1000 METs per week.
