To improve your wellbeing it is important to make sure that any exercises and training you do are effective. A good way to do this is to make sure you are exercising at the correct level of intensity.
When our personal trainers train athletes they use a variety of methods including the 20-point Borg scale of perceived exertion, heart rates and many more factors.
But for most people, it’s easier to use a simple perceived exertion scale.
Here is the Corporate Personal Wellbeing one.
During your activity ask yourself where you are on this scale. For most workouts, you should aim to be in the 5 or 6 range. With interval training, your recovery should be in the 4 to 5 range and for high-intensity sections you should be in the 8 to 9 range. You shouldn’t ever get to a 10.
For walking or long workouts try for between 3 and 5.
- Level 1: I’m sat down watching Netflix
- Level 2: I’m really comfortable and walk at this pace forever
- Level 3: I’m still comfortable, but am breathing a touch harder than normal
- Level 4: I’m gently perspiring, but feel great and I can talk easily
- Level 5: I’m just above comfortable, am sweating more and but I can still talk easily
- Level 6: I can still talk, but am a little bit breathless
- Level 7: I can still talk, but I don’t really want to. I’m sweating like mad
- Level 8: I can make a sound in response to your questions and can only keep this pace for a little while
- Level 9: I am probably going to pop my clogs
- Level 10: Call an ambulance
If you want some individual help with developing a bespoke fitness plan, you can book one of our virtual personal training sessions.