20/08/2026
HOW THE HECK DO YOU MEET THE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY GUIDELINES?! 🏃♀️
150–300 minutes of cardio a week sounds like a lot when you have a full-time job, strength train, have a social life and generally want to have a life outside of exercise 😂
But the guidelines are there for a reason — and I think we sometimes swing too far in the direction of making people feel like they don’t need to do much exercise at all.
If you actually want to improve your cardiovascular fitness and get the wider health benefits of exercise, I think it’s worth deliberately including some proper cardio in your week.
That doesn’t mean you need to spend hours on a treadmill.
A few ways I make it more achievable:
→ Add 10–15 minutes of cardio onto the end of your strength sessions
→ Find a form of cardio you actually enjoy
→ Make it part of something else you enjoy — for me, Saturday sprints followed by a coffee ☕️
→ Parkrun, a weekend bike ride, swimming, a class, running etc. can all become something you look forward to
→ If your weeks vary massively, set yourself a monthly target rather than obsessing over hitting the exact same number every week
And remember, 150 minutes isn’t a pass/fail threshold.
If you’re currently doing very little cardio, going from 30 → 60 → 90 minutes is still a huge improvement.
I also don’t think we should be afraid of saying that, generally speaking, more exercise is better than less when we’re talking about health — provided you’re able to recover from it and it fits into your life.
The guidelines are a useful benchmark, not a ceiling.
You don’t need to become a cardio obsessive. But if strength training is your priority, I’d still want to see some aerobic work sitting alongside it. 🫶 🏃♀️
