If you have been reading this blog for any length of time you know we preach the benefits to your workforce of a healthy, active lifestyle. Usually, that preaching comes the day after I run a marathon somewhere (or write a book about running marathons somewhere), but it’s a message that’s good to hear any time. (And no, when we talk about health and fitness, that does not mean you have to go running marathons around the world. That’s just my thing.)

The American College of Sports Medicine reevaluated its guidance regarding exercise on a regular basis. They’ve suggested some forms of exercise that should be incorporated into a regular routine, and discussed the amount of time that should ideally be devoted to exercise.

Probably the key takeaway is that adults should try to get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week. While that sounds like the bare minimum should be 30 minutes per day — something many of us would think is easily doable — once you explore all the exercise they actually recommend in detail, it easily adds up to 60 minutes per day. The author included a sample workout plan:

 

An hour per day strikes many people as being a lot of time, but it’s useful to consider a couple things. First, you could break that up into different events throughout the day, and second, there is a good chance you are already spending an hour per day not doing much, which could perhaps be put to better use. Look at your day — really look at it — and see if that’s the case, if you in fact have those hidden minutes there to spare, minutes where you could be exercising instead of checking Facebook.

A lot of people, upon hearing guidelines like this, decide they simply cannot devote that kind of time, and so don’t do anything at all. Bad idea. If you cannot do 60 minutes a day, and if you cannot even hit the 150 minutes per week they recommend, you should still do what you can. Even a little exercise is better than no exercise, so don’t let your inability to hit the ideal minimum keep you from being at least somewhat active.

Getting out and being active offers your employees a chance to refresh and recharge themselves, hopefully leading to greater productivity. A healthy lifestyle gives people the energy to keep working hard and cuts down on absences from work due to illness. Encourage your team to get out and get active, keeping these guidelines in mind as a goal, not as a roadblock.

And while you’re at it, get out there yourself, too.