Everyone knows there are multiple benefits to getting exercise and staying physically active, regardless of age. A sedentary lifestyle carries numerous long term physical mental health risks such as obesity, heart and other types of cardiovascular diseases. It also poses mental adversities. For example, people who don’t get any exercise are at risk of developing depression symptoms. Unfortunately, research from the World Health Organization shows that almost a third of Australians don’t get enough exercise.
So how much exercise should you be getting to get the most benefits?
Predictably, there is no right amount of exercise. It depends on many factors at play. What are your goals? What does your eating habits look like? How many calories do you consume and burn a day? Do you do any activities such as sports? When was the last time you worked out?
These questions might seem trivial, but they are important if you want to get the most out of your workouts. For instance, if you’re barely active, you will see results quickly as opposed to someone that has been working out a couple of times a week.
The types of exercises can be divided into two:
Aerobic: As a general rule, if you are looking to stay healthy, you should aim at getting at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week. This includes brisk walking, swimming and even mowing the lawn. At the same time, these exercises should spread out during your week.
Strength: You should aim at working your major muscle group with strength exercises at least two times a week.
However, if you want to achieve good results and stay fit, you should try to work out four to five times a week. This is, of course, hard to do sometimes due to time constraints, but you should treat your physical and mental well-being as a long-term investment.
Finally, although you can still get a good work out in 30 minutes, if you want to achieve real progress you should aim at 45min to an hour.
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