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What… does  this site tell you
Heart Stopwatch

  • How to become and stay fit (with a cardiorespiratory fitness focus) for core health and wellbeing benefits in the optimal (time and effort efficient) way for physically able adults aged between 18 to 64 years old.
    • For further information about what fitness is and the reasons for being fit, see the What and Why tabs above.

What... you can learn from this site

  • Focused insights to enable optimal actions, which in a nutshell is, all the key information to help you determine:
    • What achievable personal fitness outcomes you can gain as well as all the key information to help you determine:
      • The optimal way to achieve those outcomes.
      • How to measure progress towards those outcomes.
      • How to maintain those outcomes.
      • Supported throughout by extensive linking directly to the relevant scientific evidence.
      • I have also followed the principle of, content is king, with graphics used when information is better conveyed graphically, and it is available graphically (following the principle that a picture can convey more than a thousand words). Graphics are also used as place markers to help navigate the text dense pages. The focus is on content and not glossy presentation.
  • Key takeaways:
    • If exercise could be packed into a pill, it would be the single most widely prescribed and beneficial medicine in a nation. Movement is medicine.
    • Some exercise / physical activity is much better than none and late to it is better than never.
    • Finding the form(s) of exercise / physical activity that best suites you so you can stick to it on a regular basis and for the long term should help. 
    • A key exercise concept to understand is exercise / physical activity, intensity.
    • Significant incremental health benefits accrue as more exercise / physical activity is undertaken with significant gains from from undertaking smalls amounts rather than none and continuing upwards to about 300 minutes of vigorous or 600 minutes of moderate intensity exercise / physical activity a week.
      • A wearable heart rate based activity monitor makes it much easier to track the amount of exercise / physical activity undertaken.
        • Key measurements/metrics to be aware of and monitor on an ongoing basis are:
          • Steps
          • Stairs climbed
          • Resting heart rate
          • Heart rate based activity minutes (make sure you configure your own heart rate zones and do not rely on the device defaults, zones based on percent heart rate reserve are probably the best to use if supported by the device)
          • Estimated VO2 max
    • Significant person to person differences in fitness indicators can exist even between people who appear very similar so it is individual change over time that is important to focus on rather than comparison with others.

Why… I created  this site
  • Because I wanted to know how to become and stay reasonably fit with the minimum time and effort but found free to access, concise, straightforward and reliable, evidence based information, difficult to find. I also found it difficult to obtain information that told me in simple terms, what to do and how to do it and at the same time told me how to objectively and quantifiably measure exercise activity and outcome in terms of individual change in cardiorespiratory fitness level. This site seeks to provide all the key information, in one place, in an easily digestible format. I've done my best to validate all the information provided, however, if you act upon any of it, you obviously do so at your own risk.

What… doesn't  this site tell you
  • Apart from key information on weight and weight management, in the Fat and Weight tabs, only a little about the other key attributes of being fit and healthy e.g. diet and nutrition, body composition, sleep, stress management, drug use, etc. But I do provide a lot of great links throughout, particularly in the; FatWeightLinks and Science tabs above. When I link on to specific articles or videos I have also taken the time to check the content for clarity and accuracy.

About navigating this site 
  • I've logically ordered the content into pages, navigated by clicking on the page header tabs at the top of the screen (or by clicking on the equivalent menu entries if viewing on a mobile). 
  • I've also taken an indenting approach to presenting information with more detail provided the further you go down into the bulleted indentation levels. So if you want to keep it simple stick to the higher level bullets.
  • Some of the tabs have now got a little dense with information but as I've found to be increasingly true, the devil is often in the detail...

Updates
  • This site is updated on an ongoing basis with relevant new information, evidence and any clarifications and corrections that come to light so please check back on a regular basis if you find the content of use.

Content added from 2018 onwards and last updated / reviewed in February 2024





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