The New Canadian Standard for Movement
By Sandrina Walker, Certified Personal Trainer at 360 Fitness
If you work at a desk job, drive for a living, or have recently begun working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, take a quick couple minutes and give this info a read. I promise you will be thankful you did!
Did you know that on average adults are sedentary for up to 10 hours a day!
And for a lot of us this is spent inside, in front of a computer or on the phone, working online. Many people may not see this as a problem but excessive sitting has actually been labeled as the new smoking- crazy hey? Luckily, a simple change in increasing daily movement can decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, anxiety, and obesity, just to name a few.
The 24-hour Canadian movement outlines that a day in the life of a healthy adult should include:
- Several hours of light physical activity, an accumulation of 150 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous activity, and up to 2 days of strength training
- 7-9 hours of good-quality sleep with consistent wake-up and bed times
- Limiting screen time to 8 hours or less
A recent addition made to these guidelines is that STANDING is now counted as a way of moving. It’s as simple as that! Now, I want to stress that your minutes of daily movement are not considered your “cardio” minutes, these are your light physical activities throughout the day like: taking the stairs, walking to fill your water bottle up at work, taking your dog for a walk, or parking further away from the door.
This is a great reminder that working out 2-3x week for 30 minutes is great but it can’t be everything in your health portfolio.
It will be all for nothing if you have 30 mins of activity each day followed up by 23.5 hrs of inactivity. It all has to be incorporated into a healthy lifestyle day in and day out. We suggest 2-4 full body strength training sessions each week for about 30 minutes each couples with daily movement. More movement the better.
That is why breaking the habit of sedentary behavior and including those minutes of light physical activity alongside your cardio and strength training are so important. Make some small changes to your day and you might just notice you are more productive, you have more energy, sleeping better, and that achy back is starting to feel a whole lot better.
So, for those of you who have noticed a difference in your body and energy levels, here are some great ways to add movement into your day:
- Setting up your home office on a high counter so you can stand for some of your day
- Still putting your fitness tracker on for reminders to stand and to give attention to how many steps you take each day
- Walking around your house while you are on work calls
- Setting an alarm for 10 minute breaks throughout your day to get up go for a walk or go grab some water
- Or, do those stretches your trainer always tells you to do 😉
For more information on these guidelines or for information on other age groups such as, children and seniors, go online at https://csepguidelines.ca/.
Need some help figuring out these new guidelines for you? Or want to take action on them and get your health and fitness program dialed in? Learn more about our great introductory program, the 6 Week Challenge here > http://360fitness.ca/6weeks
