LESSON 5: ROLE OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY ASSESSMENT IN MANAGING ONE’S
STRESS
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
A physically active lifestyle is 1 of the top 10 health indicators for Americans in the
Healthy People 2020 objectives and is 1 of the 7 goals listed for ideal cardiovascular
health in the 2020 American Heart Association Impact Goals.
Physical Activity Assessment
Physical activity was defined as “any bodily movements produced by skeletal muscles
that result in energy expenditure.”
Physical activity can either be classified as structured or incidental.
Structured physical activity or exercise is planned, purposeful activity undertaken to
promote health and fitness benefits.
Incidental physical activity is not planned and usually is the result of daily activities at
work, at home, or during transport.
Dimensions and Domains of Physical Activity
The 4 dimensions of physical activity include (1) mode or type of activity, (2) frequency
of performing activity, (3) duration of performing activity, and (4) intensity of performing
activity. Table 1 identifies, defines, and contextualizes the 4 dimensions.
Table 1. Physical Activity Dimensions: Mode, Frequency, Duration, and Intensity
Dimension Definition and Context
Specific activity performed (eg, walking, gardening, cycling). Mode can also be
defined in the context of physiological and biomechanical demands/types (eg,
Mode
aerobic versus anaerobic activity, resistance or strength training, balance and
stability training).
Number of sessions per day or per week. In the context of health-promoting
Frequency physical activity, frequency is often qualified as number of sessions (bouts) ≥10
min in duration/length.
Time (minutes or hours) of the activity bout during a specified time frame (eg,
Duration
day, week, year, past month).
Rate of energy expenditure. Intensity is an indicator of the metabolic demand
of an activity. It can be objectively quantified with physiological measures (eg,
Intensity
oxygen consumption, heart rate, respiratory exchange ratio), subjectively
assessed by perceptual characteristics (eg, rating of perceived exertion, walk-
Table 1. Physical Activity Dimensions: Mode, Frequency, Duration, and Intensity
Dimension Definition and Context
and-talk test), or quantified by body movement (eg, stepping rate, 3-
dimensional body accelerations).
In addition to the dimensions of physical activity, the domains in which physical activity
occurs are central to understanding the assessment of physical activity. This is
particularly important when behavior change is the intended goal. Four common
domains of physical activity are occupational, domestic, transportation, and leisure
time. Table 2 presents this 4-category classification schema with contextual definitions
and examples.
Table 2. Physical Activity Domains
Domain Contextual Definition or Examples
Work-related: involving manual labor tasks, walking, carrying
Occupational
or lifting objects
Housework, yard work, child care, chores, self-care,
Domestic
shopping, incidental
Purpose of going somewhere: walking, bicycling,
Transportation/utilitarian climbing/descending stairs to public transportation, standing
while riding transportation
Discretionary or recreational activities: sports, hobbies,
Leisure time
exercise, volunteer work
ROLE OF EXERCISE IN MANAGING STRESS
How does knowing assessing your physical activity helps you manage your stress?
Exercise increases your overall health and your sense of well-being, which puts more pep in your
step every day. But exercise also has some direct stress-busting benefits.
• It pumps up your endorphins. Physical activity may help bump up the production of
your brain's feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins. Although this function is
often referred to as a runner's high, any aerobic activity, such as a rousing game of
tennis or a nature hike, can contribute to this same feeling.
• It reduces negative effects of stress. Exercise can provide stress relief for your body
while imitating effects of stress, such as the flight or fight response, and helping your
body and its systems practice working together through those effects. This can also
lead to positive effects in your body — including your cardiovascular, digestive and
immune systems — by helping protect your body from harmful effects of stress.
• It's meditation in motion. After a fast-paced game of racquetball, a long walk or run,
or several laps in the pool, you may often find that you've forgotten the day's
irritations and concentrated only on your body's movements.
As you begin to regularly shed your daily tensions through movement and physical
activity, you may find that this focus on a single task, and the resulting energy and
optimism, can help you stay calm, clear and focused in everything you do.
• It improves your mood. Regular exercise can increase self-confidence, improve your
mood, help you relax, and lower symptoms of mild depression and anxiety. Exercise
can also improve your sleep, which is often disrupted by stress, depression and
anxiety. All of these exercise benefits can ease your stress levels and give you a sense
of command over your body and your life.
LESSON 6: HEALTH-RELATED FITNESS
FITNESS
Fitness is such a broad term and a complex subject that can include health and skill-related
fitness. Health-related fitness is often divided into several other components which form our
overall health status and include cardiovascular or aerobic fitness, strength, and flexibility.
COMPONENTS OF HEALTH-RELATED FITNESS
1. Cardiovascular Fitness (Aerobic Fitness)
• This is also sometimes known as stamina and is the ability of your body to continuously
provide enough energy to sustain submaximal levels of exercise. To do this the circulatory
and respiratory systems must work together efficiently to provide the working muscles
with enough Oxygen to enable aerobic metabolism.
• This type of fitness has enormous benefits to our lifestyle as it allows us to be active
throughout the day, for example walking to the shops, climbing stairs, or running to catch
a bus. It also allows us to get involved in sports and leisure pursuits.
• It helps with:
o Fat metabolism
o Improved delivery of Oxygen
o Faster removal of waste products
o Decreased levels of stress
2. Strength
• Strength is vitally important, not only in sports but in day-to-day life. We need to be strong
to perform certain tasks, such as lifting heavy bags or using our legs to stand up from a
chair. Strength is defined as the ability of a muscle to exert a force to overcome resistance.
• Strength is important for our health as it enables us to :
o Avoid injuries
o Maintain good posture
o Remain independent (in older age)
3. Health related fitness & flexibility
• Flexibility is the movement available at our joints, usually controlled by the length of our
muscles. This is often thought to be less important than strength, or cardiovascular
fitness. However, if we are not flexible our movement decreases, and joints become stiff.
Flexibility in sports allows us to perform certain skills more efficiently, for example, a
gymnast, dancer, or diver must be highly flexible, but it is also important in other sports
to aid performance and decrease the risk of injury.
• In daily activities, we must be flexible to reach for something in a cupboard, or off the
floor. It also helps:
o Prevent injuries
o Improve posture
o Reduce low back pain
o Maintain healthy joints
o Improve balance during movement
4. Muscular Endurance
• Muscular endurance, unlike strength, is the ability of a muscle to make repeated
contractions over a period of time. This is used in day-to-day life in activities such as
climbing stairs, digging in the garden, and cleaning. Muscular endurance is also important
in sports, such as football (repeated running and kicking), tennis (repeated swinging of
the arm to hit the ball), and swimming (repeating the stroke).
5. Body Composition
• Body composition is important component of health related fitness. It is the amount of
muscle, fat, bone, cartilage, etc that makes up our bodies. In terms of health, fat is the
main point of interest and everything else is termed lean body tissue. The amount of fat
we carry varies from person to person and healthy averages vary with gender and age.
• A healthy amount of fat for a man is between 15&18% and for women is higher at 20-
25%. It is important to maintain a healthy percentage of body fat because:
o Excess body fat can contribute to developing a number of health problems such
as heart disease and diabetes
o Places strain on the joints, muscles, and bones, increasing the risk of injury
LESSON 7: FITT PRINCIPLES
FIIT Principle
• The FIIT principle is a straightforward guideline for revising and improving any workout
plan. FIIT stands for frequency, intensity, time, and type of exercise. You need to think
about these four elements to create workouts that fit your goals and fitness level.
• For instance, working out 3 to 5 days a week with a mixture of low, medium, and high-
intensity exercise for 30 to 60 minutes per session, and performing cardio and strength
training. Working out these details and progressing them over time helps create an
effective program.
1. FREQUENCY
• The first thing to set up with your workout plan is frequency—how often you will exercise.
Frequency often depends on various factors, including the type of workout you're doing,
how hard you're working, your fitness level, and your exercise goals.
• Your frequency, however, will often depend on the type of training sessions you
perform as well as your goals. You want to work each muscle group at least two times a
week if your goal is to build bigger muscles, for example. If you do a split routine, like
upper body one day and lower body the next, your workouts can be more frequent than
total body workouts.
o Cardio Workouts
§ Cardio workouts are usually scheduled more often. Depending on
your goal, guidelines recommend moderate cardio exercise five or
more days a week or intense cardio three days a week to improve
your health.
§ If you want to lose weight, you may want to work up to more
frequent workouts, up to six or more days a week. Just remember
that more is not always better, and recovery time is essential.
o Strength Training
• The recommended frequency for strength training is two to three
non-consecutive days a week. You should have at least one to two
days between sessions.
2. INTENSITY
• Intensity has to do with how hard you work during exercise. How you increase or
decrease intensity depends on the type of workout you're doing.
Cardio Workouts
• For cardio, you will usually monitor workout intensity by heart rate, perceived
exertion, the talk test, a heart rate monitor, or a combination of those measures.
• The general recommendation is to work at a moderate intensity for steady-state
workouts. Interval training is done at a higher intensity for a shorter period. It's a
good idea to have a mixture of low, medium, and high-intensity cardio exercises, so
you stimulate different energy systems and avoid overtraining.
Strength Training
• Monitoring the intensity of strength training involves a different set of parameters.
Your intensity comprises the amount of weight you lift, and the number of reps and
sets you do. The intensity can change based on your goals.
• If you are a beginner looking to build muscle, stability, and endurance, use a lighter
weight and do fewer sets with high repetitions: two or three sets of 12 to 20 reps.
• If your goal is to grow muscle, do more sets with a moderate amount of repetitions
(for instance, four sets of 10 to 12 reps each). You can build muscle with a wide range
of repetitions and weights, but volume (total number of repetitions), is often higher
than for other goals.
• If you want to build strength, use heavy weights to do more sets with fewer reps (five
sets of three reps each, for example).
3. Time
• The next element of your workout plan is how long you exercise during each session.
There isn't one set rule for how long you should exercise, and it will typically depend on
your fitness level and the type of workout you're doing.
Cardio Workouts
• The exercise guidelines suggest 30 to 60 minutes of cardio, but the duration of your
workout will depend on your fitness level and what type of exercise you're doing.
• If you're a beginner, you might start with a 15- to 20-minute workout. If you have
some experience and are doing steady-state cardio, such as going for a run or using
a cardio machine, you might exercise for 30 to 60 minutes. If you're doing interval
training and working at very high intensity, your workout will be shorter, around 10
to 15 minutes for all-out effort-based interval training.
• Having a variety of workouts of different intensities and durations will give you a
solid, balanced cardio program.
Strength Training
• How long you lift weights will also depend on the type of workout you're doing and
your schedule. For example, a total body workout could take over an hour, whereas
a split routine could take less time because you're working fewer muscle groups in
one session.
4. Type
• The type of exercise you do is the last part of the FIIT principle. It is easy to manipulate
to avoid overuse injuries or weight loss plateaus.
Cardio Workouts
• Cardio is easy to change since any activity that gets your heart rate up counts.
Running, walking, cycling, dancing, swimming, and the elliptical trainer are some of
the wide variety of activities you can choose. Having more than one go-to cardio
activity is the best way to reduce boredom and increase variability.
Strength Training
• Strength training workouts can also offer variety. They include any exercise where
you're using some type of resistance (bands, dumbbells, machines, etc.) to work
your muscles. Bodyweight exercises can also be considered a form of strength
training.
• You can easily change the strength workouts you do, from total body training to
adding things like supersets or pyramid training, to liven things up. Incorporating
new exercises for each body part is another way to vary the type of workouts you
do.
• You may wish to spend a few weeks working on functional strength-based
movements, then move to hypertrophy or strength-based programming. Each of
these modalities includes various alternative types of strength-based exercises to
try.
