500 metabolic equivalents per week (MET/week)  or 150 min of moderate-intensity exercise per week reduces the occurrence of major cancers by 20%.

METs and MET-minutes

A well-known physiologic effect of physical activity is that it expends energy. A metabolic equivalent, or MET, is a unit useful for describing the energy expenditure of a specific activity. A MET is the ratio of the rate of energy expended during an activity to the rate of energy expended at rest. For example, 1 MET is the rate of energy expenditure while at rest. A 4 MET activity expends 4 times the energy used by the body at rest. If a person does a 4 MET activity for 30 minutes, he or she has done 4 x 30 = 120 MET-minutes (or 2.0 MET-hours) of physical activity. A person could also achieve 120 MET-minutes by doing an 8 MET activity for 15 minutes.

MET-Minutes and Health Benefits

A key finding of the Advisory Committee Report is that the health benefits of physical activity depend mainly on total weekly energy expenditure due to physical activity. In scientific terms, this range is 500 to 1,000 MET-minutes per week. A range is necessary because the amount of physical activity necessary to produce health benefits cannot yet be identified with a high degree of precision; this amount varies somewhat by the health benefit. For example, activity of 500 MET-minutes a week results in a substantial reduction in the risk of premature death, but activity of more than 500 MET-minutes a week is necessary to achieve a substantial reduction in the risk of breast cancer.

Dose Response

The Advisory Committee concluded that a dose-response relationship exists between physical activity and health benefits. A range of 500 to 1,000 MET-minutes of activity per week provides substantial benefit, and amounts of activity above this range have even more benefit. Amounts of activity below this range also have some benefit. The dose-response relationship continues even within the range of 500 to 1,000 MET-minutes, in that the health benefits of 1,000 MET-minutes per week are greater than those of 500 MET-minutes per week.

Two Methods of Assessing Aerobic Intensity

The intensity of aerobic physical activity can be defined in absolute or relative terms.

Absolute Intensity

The Advisory Committee concluded that absolute moderate-intensity or vigorous-intensity physical activity is necessary for substantial health benefits, and it defined absolute aerobic intensity in terms of METs:

  • Light-intensity activities are defined as 1.1 MET to 2.9 METs.
  • Moderate-intensity activities are defined as 3.0 to 5.9 METs. Walking at 3.0 miles per hour requires 3.3 METs of energy expenditure and is therefore considered a moderate-intensity activity.
  • Vigorous-intensity activities are defined as 6.0 METs or more. Running at 10 minutes per mile (6.0 mph) is a 10 MET activity and is therefore classified as vigorous intensity.

Relative Intensity

Intensity can also be defined relative to fitness, with the intensity expressed in terms of a percent of a person’s (1) maximal heart rate, (2) heart rate reserve, or (3) aerobic capacity reserve. The Advisory Committee regarded relative moderate intensity as 40 to 59 percent of aerobic capacity reserve (where 0 percent of reserve is resting and 100 percent of reserve is maximal effort). Relatively vigorous-intensity activity is 60 to 84 percent of reserve.

To better communicate the concept of relative intensity (or relative level of effort), the Guidelines adopted a simpler definition:

  • Relatively moderate-intensity activity is a level of effort of 5 or 6 on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is the level of effort of sitting, and 10 is maximal effort.
  • Relatively vigorous-intensity activity is a 7 or 8 on this scale. This simplification was endorsed by the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association in their recent guidelines for older adults.1 This approach does create a minor difference from the Advisory Committee Report definitions, however. A 5 or 6 on a 0 to 10 scale is essentially 45 percent to 64 percent of aerobic capacity reserve for moderate intensity. Similarly, a 7 or 8 on a 0 to 10 scale means 65 percent to 84 percent of reserve is the range for relatively vigorous-intensity activity.