The Exercise Pitch

When I talk to people about exercise I feel like I am often making a pitch on Dragons’ Den. 

What if I told you there was a way to reduce your risk of dying from heart disease by up to 19%, with no or almost no cost to you. Are you interested?

What is this mysterious thing that has the power to reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, anxiety, and depression? Well, it’s exercise. Now hold on, before you get all upset and say, “Brandon I exercise when the Flames play and I yell at the TV.” Well I am sorry to tell you that even though critiquing highly skilled athletes via your couch may get your heart rate up, it does not improve your cardiopulmonary fitness, so it is not exercise. In fact, per STATCAN, only about 58.2% of Albertans over the age of 12 achieve an ideal level of weekly exercise.

Now before you get all excited to go get a new gym membership or buy that new LuluLemon outfit to get ready for exercise - let’s talk about what makes up “ideal” exercise. To achieve this we need to define two elements, duration and intensity. 

Duration is simple: it is defined as the length of time for which you exercise both on a daily and weekly basis. It would be ideal to have sessions lasting at least 10 minutes multiple times per week, adding up to at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity exercise. This brings up the second part: intensity. Intensity is how hard you are working. Intensity can be defined several ways, including your heart rate or your perceived level of effort.

Check out this handy online and interactive tool from Alberta’s MyHealth website to determine your goal heart rate during exercise: What Is Your Target Heart Rate?

Heart rate can be one tool to help monitor the intensity of your exercise, perceived effort is another. Here are some examples of what you may notice with moderate intensity exercise:

- Your breath should quicken, but you should not be out of breath. 

- You should be able to carry a conversation, but not sing. 

- You may lightly sweat after about 10 minutes. 

If you want to really get into the nitty gritty, check out this article on rating the intensity of your exercise: The Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale.

So, recap - Ideal exercise is defined as achieving at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity exercise.

Though this criteria for physical activity is important, it is also just a guide to give us a benchmark to work towards or from. Designing and implementing a new health behavior can have its challenges, especially when that behavior is time dependent. When I work with clients to develop a new health routine, I use a value driven approach because simply telling someone “to exercise '' is not effective.

What to expect: I will work with you to define a movement based activity that is fun and constructive for your heart, because exercise is more than joining a gym. It can be using an app at home to guide your exercise, joining a community based fitness class virtually or in person, or going for a brisk walk or family bike ride around a neighborhood.

If you have questions about how exercise can improve your heart health, lower blood pressure, or lower blood sugar make a free 15 minute appointment and let’s talk about your health. 

If you would like more information about movement based guidelines, check out the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines.