How to Track the Intensity of Aerobic Exercise 

Substantial health benefits are gained when adults achieve 150-300 minutes per week of moderate intensity exercise, or 75-150 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week. There are many tools and methods that can help us figure out how intense our activity is. Utilizing these methods helps to achieve physical activity goals. Two examples include the Talk Test and Perceived Effort.

The Talk Test is a method of gaging exercise intensity based on the ability to hold a conversation. If you are able to hold a steady conversation, you are most likely engaging in low to moderate activity. If you are only able to sustain a few words at a time, you are most likely participating at a vigorous level.

Perceived Effort is a subjective method of monitoring how hard exercise feels to you. This is measured on a scale of 0-10, 0 being at rest and 10 being the maximum amount of effort you can sustain for the given exercise. According to American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), moderate intensity exercise is targeting an RPE (rating of
perceived exertion) of 3-4, Vigorous exercise is an RPE of 5-7 on this scale.

To learn more about monitoring your exercise intensity, feel free to chat with a fitness coach at CHFC or follow the link below to ACMS’s infographic on exercise intensity.

exercise-intensity-infographic.pdf (acsm.org)

— Coach Carlee