guides · physical activity · 4 min read
Physical activity
key points
- The Australian guideline: 150–300 minutes of moderate activity a week (or 75–150 minutes vigorous, or a mix), strength work on 2 or more days.
- Around 7,000 steps a day is linked to a big drop in mortality risk. Ten thousand was never the evidence-based number.
- Strength training matters for healthy ageing, not just cardio, and a modest weekly amount helps.
- Long, unbroken stretches of sitting carry their own risk, even for people who otherwise exercise.
- Balance and functional movement help prevent falls, especially as you get older.
Most of what I need to tell you about exercise fits on one page, and none of it involves a heart-rate monitor or a percentage of your maximum output. The starting point is the Australian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for adults aged 18 to 64, published by the Department of Health. They ask for 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, or a mix of the two, plus muscle-strengthening activity on two or more days. That is the target I use with my own patients, and it is deliberately roomy: a brisk daily walk gets most people there on its own.
Do I really need 10,000 steps?
No. That figure came from a 1960s Japanese pedometer marketing campaign, not a study, and it has outlived its origin by sheer repetition. A 2025 meta-analysis in The Lancet Public Health found that people doing around 7,000 steps a day had a markedly lower risk of dying from any cause than people doing around 2,000, with the curve flattening out well before 10,000. The honest message is to start smaller than you think: going from very little to a daily walk is where almost all of the benefit sits.
What about strength, not just cardio?
Resistance training is not an optional extra for people who want to look a certain way. It is linked to a real drop in all-cause mortality on its own, and most of that benefit appears to come from surprisingly modest weekly amounts, not hours in a gym. It also matters more as you get older, because muscle and bone naturally decline with age, and strength work is one of the few things that pushes back. You do not need a program or a set of numbers from me here: two sessions a week using your own bodyweight, resistance bands or light weights, building up gradually, is a genuinely useful habit.
Does sitting all day undo my exercise?
Partly, yes. Long, unbroken stretches of sitting carry a mortality risk of their own, separate from how active you are the rest of the day. The fix is not complicated: standing up and moving for a minute or two every 30 minutes or so breaks that pattern, even if the total exercise you do stays the same. If your day is mostly spent at a desk, this is often the easiest change to make first.
What about balance, and falls?
Balance and functional exercise, the kind that challenges your stability rather than just your fitness, reduces the rate of falls in older adults. This becomes more relevant with every decade past fifty, and it is worth building in deliberately rather than assuming your other activity covers it. If you are unsteady on your feet or have had a fall recently, that is a conversation worth having with your GP rather than working out alone.
One caution before you start anything new: if you have not exercised in a while, or you have a heart condition, check with your GP before doing anything vigorous. None of the above is a reason to push through chest pain, dizziness or breathlessness that feels wrong.
Dr Ahmed Al-Obaidi · FRACGP
General information only, not personal medical advice. Talk to your own GP about what suits you.
Where this comes from
- The Australian guideline. Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Physical activity and exercise guidelines for adults (18–64 years), the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines.
- Steps and mortality. Ding D, Nguyen B, et al. Daily steps and health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis · The Lancet Public Health, 2025.
- Combined aerobic and resistance training. Zhao M, Veeranki SP, et al. Combined aerobic and resistance training and mortality risk · BMJ, 2020. 479,856 adults.
- Sitting and mortality. Ekelund U, et al. Does physical activity attenuate the association between sitting time and mortality? · The Lancet, 2016, pooled analysis.
- Falls prevention. Sherrington C, Fairhall NJ, et al. Exercise for preventing falls in older people living in the community · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2019.
All free to read in full, accessed 27 August 2026.