How much physical activity do adults need?

Physical activity is anything that gets your body moving. According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, adults need to do two types of physical activity each week to improve their health: aerobic activity and muscle strengthening.

150 minutes each week sounds like a lot of time, but that could be 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. The good news is that you can spread your activity out during the week, so you don’t have to do it all at once. You can even break it up into smaller chunks of time during the day.

Recommended Levels For Health Benefits

Adults should aim for150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity activity, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity activity, or an equivalent combination of both.

Moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity means you’re working hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat. One way to tell if it’s a moderate-intensity aerobic activity is that you’ll be able to talk, but not sing the words to your favorite song. Here are some examples of activities that require moderate effort:

  • Walking fast

  • Doing water aerobics

  • Riding a bike on level ground

  • Playing doubles tennis

  • Pushing a lawn mower

Vigorous-intensity aerobic activity means you’re breathing hard and fast, and your heart rate has gone up quite a bit. You may use the Talk Test to gauge the intensity of your aerobic physical activity. If you’re being active at a vigorous level, you won’t be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath. Here are some examples of activities that require vigorous effort:

  • Jogging or running

  • Swimming laps

  • Riding a bike fast or on hills

  • Playing singles tennis

  • Playing basketball

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Physical activities to strengthen your muscles are recommended at least 2 days a week. Activities should work all the major muscle groups of your body—legs, hips, back, chest, abdomen, shoulders, and arms. Muscle-strengthening activities should be done in addition to your aerobic activity.

To gain health benefits, you need to do muscle-strengthening activities to the point where it’s hard for you to do another repetition without help. A repetition is one complete movement of an activity, like lifting a weight or doing a sit-up. Try to do 8-12 repetitions per activity, which counts as 1 set. Try to do at least 1 set of muscle-strengthening activities. To gain even more benefits, do 2 or 3 sets.

You can do activities that strengthen your muscles on the same or different days that you do aerobic activity—whatever works best for you. There are many ways you can strengthen your muscles, whether it’s at home or the gym. You may want to try the following:

  • Lifting weights

  • Working with resistance bands

  • Doing exercises that use your body weight for resistance (e.g., push-ups, sit-ups)

  • Heavy gardening (e.g., digging, shoveling)

  • Some forms of yoga

learn more

Read up on how exercise can support physical and mental health in the CDC’s Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.