Your physical health directly depends on the physical activities you perform in routine life. This means your fitness routine affects your health through several factors including boosting your metabolism, burning extra calories and improving your heart health. The thing is that you need to add some hard physical activities as excuses into your routine so that you may achieve all the said goals through exercise. It’s a common observation that Strenuous Exercises are the most effective way to turn things up a notch. Adding more strenuous exercises to your workout routine can help you live a life with improved physical and mental health.
However, you also need some tips to do it effectively and safely. For this keep reading so that you may learn more about sternous or vigorous exercise and the effective ways to dial up the intensity of your workouts safely.
What is Strenuous Exercise?
Intensity of your workout activities are also important as the duration of exercise. The intensity of exercise boosts up several functions of your body.
Exercise is categorized into three types on the basis of its intensity including:
- Low intensity exercises.
- Moderate intensity exercises.
- Vigorous or strenuous exercises.
Here are some examples of strenuous exercises:
- Cycling.
- Running.
- Jumping rope.
- Walking briskly uphill.
This is a reality that you can easily sustain the low to moderate exercise for longer periods. So follow the standards set by the Physical Activity Guideline Department for reaping more health benefits from strenuous exercise. The department of search suggested that people with age 18 or more should perform one of the following:
- 80 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity per week.
- 140 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic per week.
- Combine both types of activities equally throughout the week.
Distinctive Features of Strenuous Exercise and Moderate Exercise
You can increase your exercise intensity easily and simply by adding your favorite activities to your routine. You can perform some moderate exercises just at a more vigorous pace. Sternous exercises are considered more beneficial than using low or moderate intensity excuses because you can reap more benefits for vigorous exercise in a short period of time. This means that time is the important factor when we discuss benefits of strenuous exercise. For example, when you do a more strenuous exercise for 2- minutes you can reap more health benefits as compared to doing 40 minutes low to moderate intensity workout.
Some examples of strenuous and moderate exercises are jotted below, so you can understand the difference:
| Strenuous Exercise | Moderate Exercise |
| Running uphill at a steady pace. | Walking briskly. |
| Running stairs. | Walking stairs. |
| Playing singles tennis. | Playing double tennis. |
| Shoveling more than 10 lbs. Per minute digging ditches. | Raking leaves or mowing the lawn. |
| Bicycling at more than 10 mph. | Bicycling at less than 10 mph. |
| Playing a basketball game. | Shooting baskets in basketball. |
| Water jogging or running. | Jog-walk intervals. |
Benefits of Sternous Exercise
Turning up the heat on your fitness routine is not only good for your health in many ways but also makes you more efficient and active. Taking a closer look at some of the evidence-based beneficial effects of a vigorous workout routine can help you decide what to choose for reaping more health benefits. Let’s start!
Calorie Burning at High Rate: Study clearly showed that when you workout at high intensity you need more oxygen. The excess expenditure of oxygen helps more calorie burning. It also improves the “after-burn effects” which is also known as post-exercise oxygen consumption. This means after a strenuous physical activity you continue to burn calories even after finishing the exercise. This thing can be explained by the fact that your metabolism remains elevated for longer even after a vigorous workout session.
Improved Heart Health: Stores support the idea proposed in 2015 that high intensity exercises offer a low risk of cardiovascular-to-heart disease. Even the people with heart disease also can do these exercises to lower the chance of having a severe strike or heart attack. More cardiovascular benefits linked with vigorous exercise include:
- Blood sugar control.
- Improved aerobic capacity.
- Controlled diastolic pressure.
More Weight Loss: An elevated metabolism leads to higher calorie burning that usually wends with increase in weight loss. This high-intensity exercise helps you lose weight more quickly than moderate exercise.
Lower Risk of Mortality: Studies show that strenuous exercises are considered a pleading path to lower the mortality rate as the people who perform high intensity exercise live longer. This means vigorous physical activities are a great tool to avoid early death.
Improved Mood: Mood boosting is a plus point if high-intensity exercise. Vigorous exercise makes your mood less depressive and happier.
How to Measure Exercise Intensity?
It’s a matter of concern that most people are doing exercise without having knowledge about the intensity. ,measuring intensity if your workout session is essential so that you may check at what level you’re performing and what benefits or risks are associated with that specific level of intensity.
Let’s look at the three basic ways to measure the intensity of exercise you’re performing at your workout session.
1. Heart Rate: Heart rate measurement is the most effective and authentic way to learn about at what intensity you’re performing. When you do an exercise at 75 to 85% of your maximum heart rate, you qualify for the high intensity level of vigorous exercise. The maximum heat rate is the rate at which your heart beats at its maximum rate without any damage. Your maximum heart rate can be calculated by subtracting your age from 220.
For example, if you are 40 years old,
220 beats per minute minus your age means 220-40 = 180 bpm (beats per minute). Now, vigorous activity requires a maximum of 75 to 85 % of your heart rate. That’s why:
180 * 0.75 = 135
180 * 0.85 = 153.
Thus, according to your age i.e 40 years, your vigorous training is between 135 to 153 bpm. Wearing a heart rate monitor or counting your pulse during a workout helps you measure your heart rate.
2. The Talk Test: this is the easiest way to measure your exercise intensity.
If right after an exercise, it is difficult for you to converse properly, you’re sure to work out a vigorous exercise.
If you can talk easily right after an exercise with some breathlessness, this will be a moderate intensity exercise.
If using loudly is an exercise, you might be perfumed at a very low pace.
3. Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE): Using RPE means you have to pay full attention to your heart rate, muscle fatigue and exertion level during an exercise. The measurement will be based on the scale ranges between 1 to 10. Minimum exertion indicates 1 and maximum exertion is designated as 10.
Therefore, where your activity rate exceeds 7. You are performing a hard exercise approaching to high-intensity exercise. You can achieve this stung by biking,jigging and swimming. However, if you want to exceed from 9 you should add running without stopping.
How to Add Vigorous Exercises to Your Workout Routine?
Planning a systematic and strategic workout routine needs a careful analysis. You can add many normal life activities as physical activities into your daily routine.
In addition, there are several moderate activities that can be turned into spontaneous ones by increasing intensity.
The first thing you can do to add a strenuous exercise into your routine is to perform a High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workout to your routine. This exercise will add short bursts of intense workout into your workout sessions. The service exercises can also be added as exercises that involve 75 to 85% of your maximum heart rate.
2:1 workout pattern in the session can help you add vigorous activity to your exercise routine. For example when you’re on a treadmill or going outside for a running session, you may need to include:
- Running at 8 to 10 mph for 30 seconds.
- After this walk with 4 to 4 mph for 60 seconds.
- Keep this work-to-restoration alternation for 25 to 30 minutes.
Sometimes, when you add some sports like basketball, racquetball or soccer into your workout routine, this actually becomes equal to vigorous exercise. Similarly, joining their swimming or cycling classes are also another way to add serious exercise to your fitness routine.
Safety Tips
Increasing the intensity of workout is an important matter. You cannot deal with it carelessly. Keep the following points in your mind, whenever you plan to turn up the intensity level:
Talk with Your Doctor
If you’re spending an inactive life for a while or somehow are affected by a health condition, you cannot turn up your intensity level on your own. You need to talk with your doctor and physical trainer. They can advise you on a safe level of exercise that can not harm your health or create any side effects.
Build Up the Intensity at Slow Pace
Starting with low intensity then approaching too moderate, is the safest way to add up to your intensity level. However, when you increase your level of intensity from moderate to high, you should be more careful. Try to do this slowly with low power. For example, when you come to your ankle to jump your both feet at once, try to add more vigorous exercise with bite-syze increments. Because pushing yourself more quickly can lead to injury. To add to your intensity at slow speed, you can spread the procedure over a full week, like:
For 1st Week: Swap out one moderate cardio session for HIIT workout.
For 2nd Week: Swap one moderate-paced session with HIIT workout. But replace it with a strength training session to your weekly routine as well.
For 3rd and 4th Week: Now, you can start adding more intensity while retreating week 1 and 2 activities.
Avoiding performing strenuous sessions back-to-back can help you stop burning out and injury. In addition, performing the high intensity exercise by spacing out your vigorous workout throughout the week can make it easy for you.
Pay Attention to Recovery Time
Vigorous sessions make your body more exhausted. That’s why your body needs more time to recover right after another workout session. You need to help your body recover soon and safely. You can do this by adding some cool-down and stretching sessions to your routine after a strenuous exercise exercise.
Stay Hydrated
Hard or high intensity exercises not only put pressure on your muscles but also increase your heart rate. In this condition, if you forget to maintain a moderate hydration level in your body, you may get injured or cramped. Not having enough water or fluids while doing hard exercises can affect the quality of your workout and makes you dizzy or lethargic, even leading to headaches.
Risks of Vigorous Physical Activity
No doubt, exercise has many beneficial effects for your overall health but it’s also a reality that exercising also sometimes comes with some risks of cardiovascular complications or muscular injuries.
According to strides, the people who perform regular exercise or often live to do high intensity or vigorous exercises often experience musculoskeletal injuries that are usually associated with the type of activity, preexisting health conditions, a physical anomaly or intensity of exercise.
In addition, cardiovascular complications are also observed in people who perform intense exercise but the rate is lower than musculoskeletal injuries. It often occurs due to hereditary abnormalities or conjunction with congenital abnormalities.
Moreover, people who used to live a sedentary life and suddenly begin vigorous exercise quickly are at high risk of injuries and complications. Following a systematic training program that is especially built up for vigorous exercise is the best way to allow your body to get adapted to such a workout routine.
Conclusion
High-intensity workouts are actually strenuous exercises that are performed at the 75 to 85% of maximum of your heart rate. These exercises not only improve your overall health but also boost your metabolism, improve your heart health and reduce the risk of several cardiovascular diseases.
Playing safely and adding the intensity level to your exercise at low pace and slow speed can protect you from future injuries or complications.
So, whenever you want to turn up your intensity level from iterate to high, talk with your doctor. They may suggest to you the safest way to add strenuous exercise to your workout routine.
