How Much Is Enough?

To control heart disease, do moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise for 30 minutes of aerobic exercise 5 days each week.

To reverse heart disease, do moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise for 60 minutes of aerobic exercise 5 days each week.

Taking part in both aerobic exercise and resistance training has many benefits. The fitter you are, the longer you can live and the lower your risk of developing diseases like heart disease.

To get these health benefits you need to do regular physical activity.

How Much Physical Activity Should I Do to Control Heart Disease?

To enjoy the benefits of aerobic exercise you need to do at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise per week. This could be 30 minutes 5 days per week.

Moderate aerobic activity means activities such as:

brisk walking
dancing
playing games or sports

Vigorous aerobic activity means activities such as:

running
walking or climbing briskly up a hill
fast cycling
fast swimming
competitive sports

How Much Physical Activity Should I Do to Reverse Heart Disease?

To reverse heart disease you need to do at least 300-330 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise per week. This could be 60 minutes 5 days per week.

Bar graphs showing blockages getting smaller with more hours of exercise done per week. 1.5 percent decrease in blockages with 1.5 hours of exercise in a week. 3.5 percent decrease in blockages with 3.5 hours of exercise in a week. 6 percent decrease in blockages with 5 to 6 hours of exercise in a week.

Amount of exercise and what happens to the size of coronary artery plaque

Rainer Hambrecht, Josef Niebauer, Christian Marburger, Martin Grunze, Barbara Kälberer, Klaus Hauer; Günter Schlierf, Wolfgang Kübler, Gerhard Schuler. Various intensities of leisure time physical activity in patients with coronary artery disease: Effects on cardiorespiratory fitness and progression of coronary atherosclerotic lesions. (opens in new window) J Am Coll Cardiol. 1993;22(2):468-477. doi:10.1016/0735-1097(93)90051-2.

Exercise plays a big role in stabilizing the amount of plaque in arteries (keeping it the same) or regressing it (making it smaller).

Doing exercise for 5.5 hours or more each week reduces the amount of plaque.
Doing exercise for 3 hours each week keeps the amount of plaque stable (the same).
Doing exercise for 1.5 hours and less each week allows the amount of plaque to increase.

How Much Physical Activity Should I Do?

To reverse heart disease, do 300-330 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise per week. This could be 60 minutes 5 days per week.
To control your heart disease, do 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise per week. This could be 30 minutes 5 days per week.

To find out how much exercise is right for you, it is important to think about:

your goals
your current fitness level
your current amount of physical activity
your medical history

For some people, doing the amounts of activity above is realistic. For others, it may not be. You may be living with other conditions that make reaching for these levels of activity unsafe.

Speak with your doctor and cardiovascular prevention and rehabilitation team to find out how much exercise you should be doing.