Last week I had this idea that somehow managed to creep into my head that I should try to achieve 2,000 active minutes in my Garmin.
According to my Garmin:
Your Weekly Progress
Major health organizations (see below) recommend 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity activity, such as brisk walking, or 75 minutes per week of vigorous intensity activity, such as running.To gauge activity intensity, use the following guidelines:
Moderate Intensity
You can hold a conversation but not sing while exercising.Vigorous Intensity
You can only speak a few words between breaths while exercising. Vigorous intensity minutes will only be recorded when heart rate data is available.Reaching Your Goal
You must do at least 10 minutes of moderate or vigorous intensity activity at a time for your Garmin activity tracker to count it. Use any combination of moderate and vigorous exercise to achieve your goal of 150 active minutes per week. Each minute of vigorous activity counts as two intensity minutes.
I did not consider this that much of an unreasonable stretch given that I have typically averaged somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 active minutes each week.
To hit 2,000 active minutes, I did not just want to double my time on the bike or spend more time in the gym. I actually wanted to be as intentional as possible, incorporating more yoga and active recovery work. What I found was that I was able to really push those active minutes but would still need a good bit more activity.
Normally, I enter my Juggernaut lifting as a general block of time in my Garmin. This past week, I started a strength activity on my watch and would go back in later to add the weight, reps, sets, along with an estimate on rest period so that I would have a better gauge of work/rest time. I also added in some extra cycling, but not solely because of this little mini-challenge of mine. After I run, my right knee is super tight. More from running than any other activity. After a cool-down walk, I tested coming home and doing a low-impact ride on the bike to see how that would feel, thinking it might flush my legs out a bit.
Summary
- As of today, I have zero interest in actually hitting 2,000 active minutes in a week.
- If I continued this amount of volume each week, I feel I could handle it initially, but would quickly burn out. On Sunday, I got up and went for an hour walk, but because of this challenge (And an additional available Garmin badge), I hopped on the bike for a 75-minute ride when I might have otherwise done a 30-minute low-impact ride.
- My running pace held up, which I did not expect. I thought for certain that would be one of the first things to break down.
- My appetite wasn’t really out of control. I was partially expecting to be a lot more hungry, but a slight increase in protein seemed to really help with that.
- Weight during all of this maintained, even through having a burger and fries one night, southern comfort foods on Sunday, and ice cream.