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Lecture Notes

As you remember, the third component of the FITT formula is time, or the duration of a particular exercise session, and here we recommend that an exercise session lasts for 20 to 60 minutes in order to gain significant aerobic benefits. The key here is that it doesn't all have to happen at the same time, so you can accumulate bouts of exercise over the course of the day, as long as those bouts are at least 10 minutes long each. And there is a give and take with intensity and duration when you're talking about developing cardiorespiratory fitness. So, for example, if you exercise at a much lower intensity, so let's say closer to the 55-65%, then you'll need to be active for a little bit longer during your exercise sessions, as compared to if you were exercising at 80% of your maximal heart rate. Then you could be active for maybe closer to the 20 minutes that is on the low end of the time or duration aspect here. The final component of the FITT formula is the type of activity you choose, and here you'll want to refer back to the very beginning of the lecture, and choose some of those activities we talked about that use your larger muscle groups—so your quadriceps, your hamstrings—and is rhythmic in nature. So here, again, examples could be swimming, running, biking, all of those are great aerobic activities.