Intensity Duration & Intensity Minutes

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What is this?

All physical activity you perform requires a certain number of calories (or energy). Just how many calories are required depends on the intensity of the activity. To help you keep track of your active intensity duration, we break down your total physical activity over a 24-hour period (not limited to exercise, and excluding sleeping) into three states:

• Light activity: This state uses the least number of calories, compared to moderate and vigorous activity. Examples of light activities are walking, gardening, kicking a ball and easy cycling.

• Moderate activity: These activities use more calories than light activities, but not as many as vigorous activities. Moderate activities include hiking, jogging, playing tennis and moderate cycling.

• Vigorous activity: Completing a vigorous activity requires the highest number of calories out of the three activity states. Running, vigorous cycling and rowing are examples of vigorous activities. 

The duration of your light, moderate and vigorous activity over a given time period is weighted according to intensity (with light carrying the least and vigorous the most weight) and combined to calculate intensity minutes. The more intensity minutes you have, the more effective your activity is in using calories.

Why is it important?

According to the latest research, a high level of stationary time can negatively impact your health, no matter your body weight, diet or the physical activities you engage in. Generally, stationary behavior includes any time you are standing still, sitting or lying down. This includes pastimes like watching TV or reading, but excludes sleeping. To maintain a healthy body, you should keep your stationary time to a minimum and include moderate to vigorous activities in your daily routine. While LifeQ Explorer only determines the duration and intensity of aerobic exercise, we recommend including a variety of physical activities so that all your bases are covered: 

• Aerobic: Improves body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness

• Muscle strengthening: Improves muscular fitness such as strength and endurance

• Stretching: Improves flexibility and range of motion

• Neuromuscular: Improves balance, agility and proprioception

Guidelines

The World Health Organization and the US Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommend the following minimum activity for adults aged 18 to 64:

• 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week (or 30 minutes per day) 

OR

• 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week 

OR

• Combinations of the above

In terms of intensity minutes, we recommend aiming for 600 intensity minutes per week, which comes down to 30 to 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity daily.