Vigorous Exercise: More Real-Life Examples

Andy Ness from the University of Bristol in England has pointed me to some more real-world examples of vigorous, as opposed to mild or moderate, exercise: hiking, rowing, dancing, bicycling 10 to 16 mph.

You can find more examples of vigorous exercise at the Healthful Life website, published by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Ness recently co-authored a scientific paper that showed that children who are vigorously active are less likely to be overweight or obese. That prompted many of you to wonder, "What is vigorous exercise?" Or "How can I tell if my child is engaged in vigorous play?

The easy rule of thumb for measuring vigorous exercise, as I wrote in April, is the singing/talking test.

If you can sing while exercising, that's mild exercise. If you can carry on a conversation but cannot sing, that's moderate and if you can only speak a sentence or so at a time, that's vigorous exercise.

Just What is Vigorous Exercise or Play?

Ever since a March study highlighted the importance of moderate-to-vigorous play in keeping children from becoming overweight or obese, several readers have wondered how to decide what exactly is moderate or vigorous exercise.

The simplest method, if you don’t have an actigraph or access to a physiology lab, is the talk test.

If you can easily sing while exercising, that’s a light level of activity.

If you’re lungs are working too hard to sing, but you can carry on a conversation while exercising, that’s a moderate level of activity.

And if you can’t say more than a few words at a time, that’s a vigorous level of activity.

Your body can sustain light to moderate activity for a long time. Vigorous activity is, by definition, something that you can practically do only in short spurts—perhaps 15 to 20 minutes—before you need to rest.

Vigorous activity helps keep your heart in shape, as well as keeping the weight off. As always, check with your doctor first before starting a new exercise routine if you have a serious cardiovascular or respiratory condition.

For folks who are into numbers, you can also measure your activity level with what’s called the Borg Relative Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale. (The older version goes from 6 to 20, while the more recent one is a simpler 0-to-10-point scale.)

"The good thing about the RPE scale is that it makes you listen to your body," says Miriam Nelson, director of the John Hancock Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Tufts University in Boston. Brisk walking, she notes, might be vigorous for one person while it takes a pretty fast run for another to become winded.

Don’t get discouraged if you can’t fit a lot of vigorous exercise into your life. You can still build up your stamina and maintain your figure with plenty of moderate activity. You may also suffer fewer injuries as a result.

Source: Measuring Physical Activity (CDC website), accessed on April 20, 2007

Update: See also these real-life examples of vigorous activity.

Vigorous Play Keeps the Pounds Off

Are fat people fat because they don't exercise enough? Or do they not exercise enough because they are fat? These questions are actually tougher to answer than you might suppose, as a study from the U.K. in the open-access journal PLoS: Medicine makes clear.

Investigators found that moderate to vigorous physical activity in a group of 5,500 12-year olds was associated with a lower risk of obesity. But the researchers couldn't say whether the kids were active because they were already slim. Or in their own words: "our study is cross-sectional and we cannot therefore rule out the possibility that these associations represent reverse causality, and that obesity leads to a reduction in physical activity."

However the data are consistent with the idea that brief bursts of vigorous physical activity on a daily basis--running around, playing soccer--increased calorie output enough to lower the risk of obesity in children. Total physical activity (which included more leisurely exercise) was not as important as moderate to vigorous activity.

Naturally, most press accounts emphasized the word "brief" in their reports. But as the study makes clear, the more active the children were, the less likely they were to have trouble with their weight.

Bottom line: Kids still have to eat healthfully--calorie intake being the other half of the weight equation--but physical activity should not be overlooked.

Update: See also my post from April 20, 2007 that helps you determine the difference between moderate and vigorous excerise.

Source: Ness AR, Leary SD, Mattocks C, Blair SN, Reilly JJ, et al. (2007) Objectively Measured Physical Activity and Fat Mass in a Large Cohort of Children. PLoS Med 4(3): e97v doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040097