Your METS and how they can help extend your life

opher
opher Posts: 19
edited September 30 in Fitness and Exercise
A while back I got tired of seeing the METS stat on the gym machines without having the faintest clue what it means. One quote I found was that according to a study published in 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine "Women whose exercise capacity [in METs] at the start of the study in 1992 was less than 85% of the predicted value for their age were twice as likely to have died over the next eight years compared with those who achieved 85% or better." That seemed like a good reason to keep reading about it, so I researched some more and wrote up what I found: "What Are METs and How Can They Help Improve Your Fitness?" (see http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1413619/what_are_mets_and_how_can_they_help.html). Let me know what you think (or leave a comment on the article).

Replies

  • atla_moves
    atla_moves Posts: 54
    There's also a good section on this in the book "New Rules of Lifting for Women" with a longer list of each exercise and its equivalent METs. Cycling 10-12mph is also 6 METs. Hatha yoga is 2.5. I aim for 21-40 per week, and reach my minimum just with weight lifting/yoga. I try to reach the max with hiking/cycling.
  • opher
    opher Posts: 19
    You can't add up METS from different workouts. The METS is a rate measurement, sort of like the speed of a car. You do not sum up the speed you go on different trips, and in the same way, you'd not sum up METS from different workouts. You can, however, set up a METS goal and measure how many minutes you exceed that level on a daily, weekly, and/or monthly basis.
  • atla_moves
    atla_moves Posts: 54
    I'm not saying that I work out at an average of 21-40 METs. I'm saying that I aim for about 21-40 MET-hours per week. My basis for this is this 1999 study in the New England Journal of Medicine:

    http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021067#t=articleResults

    In table 1 ( http://www.nejm.org/action/showImage?doi=10.1056/NEJMoa021067&iid=t01 ), you can see that they analyzed 5 groups of women, divided by MET-hours per week. The highest quintile had a median of 32.8 MET hours per week, and had the lowest incidence of heart disease. That is what I base my goals on, since heart disease is quite prevalent in my family.
  • opher
    opher Posts: 19
    Gotcha! I thought you were summing up the METS (as in, today I hit 16, yesterday 14, and the day before 15, so my total is 14+15+16 = 45 which would be nonsensical).

    Since you're summing up METS * hours, that's completely reasonable. In my car example, it's the equivalent of summing speed * hours which equals the total distance traveled. Good for you (and a great bit of advice to others)!
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