How much training is enough to get started?

Building an initial fitness program

Nov 18, 2022

The optimal frequency, intensity, duration and type of exercise will vary between individuals based on their goals, experience and lifestyle.

Generally speaking, less training is required in the early stages of building strength, fitness and mobility, as the body will adapt to a relatively low-level stimulus. As we progress, additional loading is required to ensure continual progression.

While it’s impossible to give personalised recommendations without knowing the circumstances, the Physical Activity and Exercise Guidelines for Australians provide practical recommendations for getting started, especially for people who want to increase physical activity but haven’t selected a training goal.

The recommendations for adults aged 18-64 are:

150 - 300 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity such as a brisk walk, golf, mowing the lawn or swimming; or
75 - 150 minutes of vigorous activity such as jogging, aerobics, fast cycling, soccer or netball; or
An equivalent combination of both; and
Resistance training should be included as part of physical activity twice per week.

Understanding intensity

This activity list is not exhaustive, so it’s handy to have a method to assess the intensity of your physical activity. A great way to do this is the ‘talk test’. If you can maintain a conversation during physical activity, then it is probably a moderate intensity.

If you can’t talk or need to take a breath in a 40-syllable sentence, then it is probably vigorous activity. It’s not a perfect assessment tool, but it’s handy for quantifying intensity and getting started.

I will add a disclaimer that intermittent training with short periods of work and large amounts of rest is easiest to track as moderate intensity. This includes strength training in the gym, especially when the work-to-rest ratios are greater than 1:2 (i.e. 30 seconds of work and 60 seconds or more of rest).

The talk test is also handy for strength training, which can be hard to categorise. Strength training with low ratios of work to rest (1:2 or more) is best classified as moderate intensity, as the high-intensity lifting is balanced out by periods of low-intensity while standing around waiting to recover.

Circuit training or gym classes tend to be vigorous activities because there is less rest during the session, which the talk test often demonstrates very easily!

Active minutes

The recommendation is for 2x the amount of moderate intensity than vigorous activity each week. This makes it simple to use the moderate activity target for the week and count vigorous activity minutes as 2x moderate activity minutes.

Many readers will be familiar with the idea of ‘accumulating minutes’ when starting out a new training routine. It’s important to allocate blocks of time to exercise, even when the entire duration is not required for training adaptations. This can help progress and ensure minimal interference with your routine long term.

An example might be focusing on training for a 10km run, and it’s identified that you will need to train 3-5 times each week for 30-45 mins each session as the program progresses.

In the early stages, you might not be able to run for more than 10 minutes, but instead of stopping the run at that stage, we turn it into a longer walk/run session where you do more duration with moderate intensity.

Aside from being beneficial to training, it’s a great way to accumulate time exercising, and the long sessions become a part of your routine from the outset instead of being a continual time creep as your progress.

The biggest hurdle to physical activity is getting started, so it makes sense to keep going when you are moving.

Here’s an example of how someone might hit a 300-minute activity target with a combination of moderate-intensity and vigorous-intensity activity.

Monday - 40-minute total brisk walk to/from work (+40 mins)
Tuesday - 35-minute gym class (+70 mins)
Wednesday - 30-minute jog (+60 mins)
Thursday - 40-minute yoga class (+40 mins)
Friday - rest
Saturday - 30-minute jog (+60 mins)
Sunday - 30-minutes mowing lawn (+30 mins)

Someone starting out might not do any vigorous activity and instead aim for moderate-intensity activity only. The lower end of the range (150 minutes) requires an average of 21.5 minutes of activity per day, while the upper range requires double that (43 minutes)

Where to begin

Increasing duration is a good place to start for many people. This gets them into the routine of allocating time to exercise and allows their body to adapt. Building a base of volume also helps to prepare the body for later intensity. It’s a better idea to start out walking, then jogging and running for longer periods of time than jumping straight into a 100m sprint (your hamstrings will thank you).

Start out with the 150-minute target and once that’s consistently being adhered to, ramp it up by 15-minutes per week (through a combination of moderate or vigorous activity) until you hit the 300-minute target.

Increase movement, then intensity

Once you’re hitting the 150-300-minute target, start to play around with the intensity of your training. Add in some more gym sessions or jogging in place of walking while being guided by your fitness.

This is where the physical activity guidelines begin to give out, and you need to manage your own training.

300-minutes might sound like a lot of time, but jogging accumulates 2x minutes of vigorous activity, but the vigorous category is quite broad. Jogging differs from running a hard 5km or 10km at paces below 6 min per km. So once you reach the 300-minute mark, your training will need to be guided by more than just minutes.

Summary

Allocating time to exercise or accumulating minutes is a great place to start building your fitness routine. Once it becomes habitual and part of your schedule, then focus on increasing the intensity of the training session

Aside from giving your body time to adapt to physical activity, there is fewer cognitive demands in completing a 40-minute walk early in the week than spending the same time jogging towards the top of your current fitness.

There is plenty of time to make progress in the future, so prioritise keeping things adhereable and you’ll reach that point soon. Just like dieting, so many people rush their fitness expectations only to give up or break down with an injury because their body, or mind, just wasn’t ready.

Q&A

If there is anything fitness and nutrition related that you are trying to get your head around, post it below or reply to this email and it will go straight to my inbox. All questions are posted without names unless you specify otherwise.