As I have learned from you, the physician activity guidelines use the MET concept to communicate a public health target for physical activity, which is 500-1,000 MET-minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity per week. Just to check if I understand that concept correctly, I would like to give an example:
Every morning I conduct a sequence of bw movements (squats, lunges, blanks, hip thrusts and various mobility exercises) which lasts about 10 minutes. Assuming that this routine corresponds to a MET value of 5, I would collect 5 (MET) x 10 (min) x 7 (days) = 350 MET minutes over the week.
Now, since my job involves a lot of sitting in front of a computer I also incorporated so-called micro breaks, i.e. after a meeting or when I finished a task I get up and do a sequence of 5 squats, 5 push-ups, 5 sit ups. Assuming this activity corresponds to 5 MET, lasts about 30 sec and I do it 5 times a day, I would collect 5 (MET) x 0.5 (min) x 5 (per day) x 7 (days) = 88 MET minutes. Does that make sense or is the single exposure of less than a minute too short to count towards my weekly MET target?
The 500 to 1000 MET-minute/wk recommendation is for conditioning, not the sum of all activity. The MET compendium was designed for research purposes to try and compare different levels of habitual activity, but not all items on that list count as conditioning. The current time cut point for exercise is 5-minutes.
I think it may help to know how this information is going to be applied so that we can provide a more useful answer. If I’m guessing right, I would not count any of these circuits towards your conditioning goals for the week.
Thanks Jordan for the clarification. I mistakenly thought that as long as an activity surpasses a certain MET threshold, it would add to the 500-1000 MET-min/wk recommendation. But now I understand that this only applies to conditioning goals and for that purpose there is a little higher threshold to be met.
So how about brisk walking for about 10-20 minutes, would that count or is brisk walking in itself not hard enough an activity?
Admittedly, the guidelines aren’t written super clearly. The 500 to 1000 MET-min/wk min is for conditioning and can be acquired through moderate to vigorous physical conditioning activities. Brisk walking is likely 4.5 to 5 METs (maybe more depending on speed) and would qualify as moderate physical activity. Usually, folks adopt a self-selected pace for walking of ~ 3mph or a bit slower, which is just below the 4 MET threshold for “moderate” physical activity.