Almost every individual participates in some sort of physical activity in their daily life. Now what type of activity is one participating and what rate of intensity does this activity have is something that usually differs for people. And these different intensity ranges are what make it a lot difficult to determine how much activity is a person doing in a week’s time. In order to find out how much activity you have performed throughout the week, you must transform these activities into a common value which would then allow you to estimate how much you have worked out. This common value then helps in keeping a track of your week long activities and workout exercises.
What is MET?
This common value is referred to as the MET. MET is known as the metabolic equivalent of task, or simply as the metabolic equivalent. This is basically just a measurement that is used for expressing the energy cost or the calories burned when doing a particular physical exercise. So 1 MET is basically the energy equivalent for a person who is at rest. And when a person does some other form of physical exercise this causes the energy equivalent to increasing, and this is an indication of the change in the rate of intensity of both of these physical activities that you are performing. So if you perform a physical activity and your MET is supposedly 5 then this means that you are spending 5 times the energy that you would normally spend when you are rest.
What are MET minutes?
Another term that you will come across a lot while working out is MET-minute. So what does MET-minute stand for? Well, MET minutes are basically the amount of time that you spend doing any particular activity compared to the number of METS. So now if you were to walk at a pace that is equivalent to 5 METS for about 30 minutes then you will have to multiply both these values in order to attain MET minutes. According to the American physical activity guidelines you are required to engage in activities that result in 500-1000 MET minutes per week. This particular range has been set so that people know that whether the activities that they are including in are beneficial for their health or not. While doing aerobic activities bear in mind that 1.1-2.9 METs is the range for light intensity activity, 3.0-5.9 Mets is the range of moderate intensity activities, and 6.0 or greater than 6.0 METs is the range of vigorous intensity aerobic activities.
So how can you meet your MET value requirement?
Now if you were to head out to the gym you would see that the cardiovascular machines present there to provide the MET value of whichever activity that you have opted for. Also, you can easily find out the activity intensity as well. The compendium of physical activities also provides you access to the MET values of all the different activities that you want to take part in. The compendium provides you with the MET value for a particular activity and covers a range of scenarios as well. to find out the number of calories you have burned simply take you weight in kilogram and multiply it by the constant value of 3.5 and your MET value and then divide the value attained with the constant 200, you’ll then attain the number of calories that you have burned.
Met values and MET-minutes are exactly what you need in order to keep track of your health and to maintain a fit body and lifestyle!
