Vigorous exercise: this is any type of exercise that requires a high amount of effort, significantly elevates your heart rate, and causes rapid, heavy breathing. During this intensity, you will sweat profusely within minutes and cannot say more than a few words without pausing to catch your breath.

Recommendations: Minimum of 75 minutes per week. Ideally 150 minutes per week or more.

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 dedicating even 4% of your daily movement to intense activity lowers your risk for 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 [1]

    If you’re already physically active, 4% of your daily movement translates to 10 to 12 minutes per day of vigorous exercise. So try to engage in vigorous exercise every day.

How to measure: There are several ways to measure the intensity of exercise. Here are a few key metrics to help you classify which exercise is considered vigorous or moderate.

The talk test: If you are working out at a vigorous level, you will not be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath. If you can hold a conversation, the intensity is generally only moderate.

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 max HR of 180, making their vigorous target 126–153 beats per minute).

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)

We wish you true wealth

Sources:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30418471/