Exercise Smarter with the Talk Test

I've been getting some questions about my previous blog post "Regular Exercise: it doesn't have to be hard!". Specifically, folks seem genuinely confused on just how hard you have to work to improve your aerobic fitness and reach so many of the health benefits that I had mentioned. I am here to reiterate that it truly does not have to be gruelling! I would like to introduce a simple and effective training tool called the Talk Test. This test simply states that if your breathing is slightly laboured but you are able to maintain a light conversation while exercising, you are in a good intensity range for aerobic training. If light conversation seems too taxing, you are likely pushing yourself too hard!

Lets dig into our body's metabolism a little bit. A simplistic view of our energy metabolism can have it divided into two portions: aerobic and anaerobic systems. The aerobic system takes fuel stores in our body and, with the help of oxygen, creates lots of energy to fuel our working muscles. The only major bi-products created by aerobic metabolism are carbon dioxide, which we exhale, and water! Our anaerobic system kicks in fully when we are not getting enough oxygen to run predominantly on aerobic metabolism. This is a problem because our anaerobic system is much less efficient! Not only does it produce a fraction of the energy that our aerobic system would with the same fuel, but it also churns out lactate and hydrogen ions as bi-products. Lactate (lactic acid) actually doesn't deserve all the flack it gets in fitness communities... but that is a story for another day! It is actually the build-up of hydrogen ions that is the big problem, as this increases cellular acidity and causes that wonderfully terrible burning feeling as we exercise.

What is important to note here is that if we are working predominantly with our aerobic metabolism we can exercise comfortably for quite a long time before having to stop. Once we start working a little bit too hard there isn't enough oxygen to go around no matter how hard we breath, and our anaerobic metabolism has to pick up the slack. This means a build-up of acidity, burning muscles, and that uncomfortable shortness of breath. The anaerobic system can be trained and fine-tuned to help with certain athletic activities, but simply isn't that important if your primary goals are wellness and healthy living. 

So how do we make sure we are staying within the sustainable aerobic system? The Talk Test is probably all most of us need! If you feel it is too difficult to have a light conversation while exercising, simply drop the intensity until this is no long an issue. Working any harder will not gain you much more in terms of health benefits, but will make exercising much less pleasant. Heart rate monitors can be quite useful if you like gadgets, and there are many charts that give you the recommended heart-rate range for aerobic training. There are also much more elaborate fitness tests that can be performed (ie. VO2 Max Testing) that tell you exactly when you transition past that aerobic training zone. This can be very valuable information when training for athletic performance, as it will allow you to fine tune your training program and give you that competitive edge. But if you are simply exercising for fun and wellness, the Talk Test is probably all you need. Arm yourself with this information, grab a friend, and go enjoy a nice light conversation while getting your daily exercise!

Thanks for reading! If you haven't yet, please do check out my 30-minute wellness challenge. I want to see more fellow Vancouver Islanders getting their daily 30-minutes of exercise! We are still shy of reaching that first participation milestone, and I'm getting excited to have a prize draw! Also, for the latest 'Wellness Done Right' blog updates follow me on Twitter @derekbrownDC. Cheers!

Regular Exercise: It doesn't have to be hard!

Don't like visiting your doctor too often?? Turns out it takes more than just an apple a day, but thankfully not too much more! It is no secret that exercising is good for your health, but too many of us link the two with images of ourselves keeled over in pain, gasping for breath, and a trainer leaning over us demanding we work harder. Meanwhile, research keeps piling up that shows moderate intensity exercise for 30-minutes a day is all it takes to reap some pretty amazing health benefits!

I want to be very clear here that moderate intensity is probably much less than you think! Walking, golfing (without the cart, sorry!!), hiking, yoga, mowing a lawn, weeding your garden, and even washing a car can all be enough to push you into the "moderate" range of exercise. Basically if your breathing is slightly laboured but you are still able to have a conversation, you are working hard enough! Exercising more strenuously, of course, can still be very good for you and contribute further to health. I'm just here today to talk about the benefits of the lighter stuff.

The health benefits of this type of regular exercise are numerous. It can lower your blood pressure by 5-10 points, ultimately lowering your risk of high blood pressure by 19%. It will help lower your bad cholesterol, and improve you overall cholesterol ratios. Regular exercise will allow your body to deal with sugars more efficiently, which is very important in the management and prevention of type II diabetes. Through regular exercise you can achieve a 50% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease, a 27% reduction in the risk of stroke, and up to a 40% lowered risk of colon caner for men and breast cancer in women. Regular resistance training has very positive effects in maintaining good bone density, and also significantly reduces the loss of muscle mass as we age. In the elderly, the rate of falls, fractures, and admittance into care homes goes up at the same rate as muscle mass goes down. And if all of this improved quality of life stuff isn't enough for you, regular exercise as described can also add up to 4.5 years to your life!

Some pretty big numbers, right? Sounds easily attainable, right?? Well Statistics Canada even reduced the criteria to five 30-minute sessions of exercise per week (still good by the way!)... and only 15% of Canadians meet it! If anyone is suggesting this is because the average Canadian is far too busy, I call balderdash! Again, according to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian watches roughly 4 hours of television per day. So it really comes down to this: regular exercise is near the bottom of the priority list for most Canadians.

My hope is that together we can motivate ourselves, our family, and our friends to get a little more active and start nudging our own long-term health a little higher on our priority list. To help the motivation process along, I am starting a little twitter challenge 'here'. Please check it out and spread the wellness!

Thanks for visiting my blog. If you have a suggestion for a future topic please do drop a comment, or better yet tweet it to me @derekbrownDC. Until next time!