To live a healthy lifestyle you need to include healthy doses of movement. Many people believe this movement must be intense and have a goal to be worth anything. When I was doing my dissertation research I found many participants did not understand what physical activity was. Yet it’s an important component of active living. Here’s how the two differ: Exercise has intensity goals, usually based on your training goal – i.e. lose weight, run a race, gain mass, etc. Physical activity is all the small things you do to be more active – i.e. park as far from the store entrance and walk in, stand when you can at work, around the house, during chores, while spectating, and taking the stairs rather than the elevator, etc.
Living a physically active life is about making sure you make choices to move everyday as often as possible without concern for an intensity goal. Exercise is about determining your goal and then deciding to act upon the necessary intensities to make those dreams reality. Exercise tends to have a scheduled timing both in your daily life and in the cycles of the work to make sure you are reaching and overcoming the program goals. Activity is just about moving everyday – How will you be more active today?
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