Fitness & Exercise

Aerobic activity or endurance activity is any activity that raises your heart rate and keeps it up for a while.

This increases the amount of oxygen delivered to your heart and muscles, which allows them to work longer.

How often and how long?

Adults

Experts say to do either of these to get and stay healthy:¹

• Moderate aerobic activity for at least 2� hours a week. Moderate activity means things like brisk walking, brisk cycling, or shooting baskets. But any activity that makes your heart beat faster-including daily chores-counts as moderate activity.
• Vigorous aerobic activity for at least 1� hours a week. Vigorous activity means things like jogging, cycling fast, cross-country skiing, or playing a basketball game. You breathe harder and your heart beats much faster with this kind of activity.

You can choose to do one or both types of activity. And it's fine to be active in several blocks of 10 minutes or more throughout your day and week. Do what works best for you. For example, you could do moderate activity for 45 minutes every other day. Or you could do 10 minutes 3 times a day, 5 days a week.

You could do vigorous activity 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Or you can try to do it once a week for 1� hours, or for 25 minutes a day, 3 days a week.

Moderate exercise is safe for most people, but it's always a good idea to talk to your doctor before starting an exercise program.

Start by doing a short warm-up, such as walking or riding a stationary bike. And stretch briefly.

Children

Experts recommend that teens and children (starting at age 6) do moderate to vigorous activity at least 1 hour every day.¹ And 3 or more days a week, what they choose to do should:

• Make them breathe harder and make the heart beat much faster.
• Make their muscles stronger. For example, they could play on playground equipment, play tug-of-war, do sit-ups, or use resistance bands.
• Make their bones stronger. For example, they could run, do hopscotch, jump rope, or play basketball or tennis.

It?s okay for them to be active in smaller blocks of time that add up to 1 hour or more each day.

How hard should you work?

To get the health benefits, you need to do your activity at a moderate pace, at least. Here's an easy way to know if you're working hard enough:

• If you can't talk and do your activity at the same time, you are exercising too hard.
• If you can sing while you do your activity, you may not be working hard enough.
• If you can talk while you do your activity, you are doing fine.