🔥 Vigorous exercise:

This is any type of exercise that requires a significant amount of effort. It elevates your heart rate, and causes rapid, heavy breathing. Consequently, you will not be able to say more than a few words without pausing to catch your breath. Exercise of this intensity often causes you to sweat profusely.

❤️ Recommended health guideline:

The minimum recommended guideline for vigorous exercise is 75 minutes per week. Once you have hit this target, aim for 150 minutes per week.

✅ Benefits:

  • Improves brain health: Sharpens memory, increases attention span, reduces long-term depressive symptoms and short-term anxiety.

  • Increases longevity: Reverses heart aging, cuts early death risk, slashes chronic disease risk and increases overall mood and wellbeing.

    Recent clinical data highlights that engaging in 10 to 12 minutes of vigorous exercise each day lowers your risk of developing eight major conditions:

    • 63% lower risk of dementia

    • 60% lower risk of type 2 diabetes

    • 48% lower risk of fatty liver disease

    • 41% lower risk of chronic kidney disease

    • 31% lower risk of major cardiovascular events

There are two simple ways to check if you are exercising vigorously:

❤️ Measure your heart rate:

Vigorous exercise requires working at 70% to 85% of your maximum heart rate. You can estimate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. For example, a 40-year-old has an estimated maximum heart rate of 180, so their vigorous exercise takes place in a range of 126–153 beats per minute.

👥💬 The talk test:  

During vigorous exercise you should not be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath. If you can hold a conversation, the intensity is only moderate or light.

💡 Examples of vigorous exercise:

  • Running or jogging (faster than 5 mph)

  • Brisk uphill walking

  • High-intensity interval training (HIIT)

  • Lap swimming

  • Cycling uphill or at speeds over 10 mph

  • Fast skipping rope

  • Rowing

  • Boxing

  • Competitive sports (e.g. soccer, basketball, singles tennis)

Sources and references:

[1] Just a few minutes of effort could lower your risk of 8 major diseases - European Society of Cardiology, March 2026

[2] Exercise harder, not just longer, to reduce risk of disease and death - European Society of Cardiology, March 2026