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Physical activity is any movement of your body made by your muscles that uses energy. Exercise is a planned, structured kind of physical activity.

Children and young people aged 5 to 18 should aim for an average of at least 60 minutes of moderate or vigorous activity a day across the week, with a variety of activities to build movement skills, muscles and bones.

The talk test: moderate activity raises your heart rate, makes you breathe faster and feel warmer, but you can still talk (not sing). In vigorous activity you can't say more than a few words without stopping for a breath.

Experiment: Pulse fair test: does harder activity raise your heart rate more?

1. Find your pulse on the inside of your wrist (below the thumb) with two fingers. Count the beats for 15 seconds and multiply by 4 to get beats per minute. This is your resting pulse.
2. Walk on the spot for 1 minute, then measure your pulse straight away.
3. Rest until your pulse is back near your resting value.
4. Jog on the spot for 1 minute and measure again. Rest again.
5. Do star jumps for 1 minute and measure again.
6. Fair test: keep each activity the same length, measure the same way each time, and rest until your pulse is back to resting before the next activity. Which activity raised your pulse most?

Activity (1 minute)	Beats in 15 s	Beats per minute (× 4)	Breathing: normal / faster / much faster
Resting
Walking on the spot
Jogging on the spot
Star jumps

Questions

1. What happened to your pulse as the activities got harder? Use your results.

2. Name two things you did to make the pulse test a fair test.

3. Give one example each of an aerobic, a muscle-strengthening and a bone-strengthening activity.

4. You count 30 beats in 15 seconds. What is your pulse in beats per minute?

Sources for every fact on this sheet: echoesof.science/school/exercise/sources/

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