Your week
Tap in a normal week. See where it sits on both halves of the US guideline and on the curve past it, and the one change that would add the most.
- Cardio: 0 of 150 minutes.
- Strength: 0 of 2 days.
Brisk minutes Hard minutes, counted twice Strength days
Your normal week
Tap in a normal week. The ring fills as you go, and nothing leaves this browser.
Under 18? These tools are for adults. How much exercise does a teenager need?
What your result means
The ring shows the two halves. The cardio part fills at 150 brisk minutes, with each hard minute counting as two, and the strength part fills at two days. If either is short, that's where your next gain is, and the one change names the cheapest way to get it. If you're under 150, every extra brisk minute is worth more than any minute you'll add later, because the curve is steepest at the start.
If both halves are full, you're doing what the US guideline asks. More minutes, up to about 300, still lower the risk a little, and at 65 and up balance work is the part most people skip.
What to do next
Do the one change for two weeks, then come back and score the week again. For the strength days, Today's session plays a 12-minute circuit you can do at home. If you're starting from zero, your first four weeks builds up to the full week one step at a time.
How it works
The US guideline has two halves: 150 to 300 minutes a week of brisk activity (or 75 to 150 of hard activity, or a mix), and strength work for every major muscle on 2 or more days. Adults 65 and up add balance. A hard minute counts as two brisk ones, so 90 brisk and 30 hard minutes make 150.
The curve. A pooled study of 661,137 adults found the steepest drop in risk of death between doing nothing and doing a little: under the minimum still went with 20% lower risk than none, 1 to 2 times the minimum with 31%, 2 to 3 times with 37%, and 3 to 5 times with 39%, the top. Ten times the minimum still went with 31% lower and showed no sign of harm.
The grid. The Harvard study of 147,374 US health professionals split people by aerobic exercise (in MET-hours: a brisk minute is 3 METs, a hard one 6, so 150 brisk minutes is 7.5) and lifting minutes. Your cell is lit. It's the same grid strength.guide uses.
The one change is the first rule that fits, in this order: start moving, reach 150 minutes, add strength twice a week, add balance at 65 and up, go toward 300 minutes, then steps.
Read it the right way
These are associations in people who chose their exercise, shown one at a time against their own comparison group. They aren't your personal risk, they can't be added together, and none of them adds years to a life. The targets are typical ranges. The Gyroscope app personalizes yours.
More on how much exercise you need
10 sources
- US Department of Health and Human Services, Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition, executive summary, 2018odphp.health.gov
- CDC, Measuring physical activity intensitycdc.gov
- Arem H and others, Leisure time physical activity and mortality: a detailed pooled analysis of the dose-response relationship, JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015europepmc.org
- Lee DH and others, Long-term leisure-time physical activity intensity and all-cause and cause-specific mortality, Circulation, 2022europepmc.org
- Zhang Y and others, Long-term resistance training with all-cause and cause-specific mortality, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2026pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Momma H and others, Muscle-strengthening activities are associated with lower risk and mortality in major non-communicable diseases, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2022europepmc.org
- Paluch AE and others, Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts, Lancet Public Health, 2022europepmc.org
- Ding D and others, Daily steps and health outcomes in adults: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis, Lancet Public Health, 2025europepmc.org
- Sherrington C and others, Exercise for preventing falls in older people living in the community, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2019europepmc.org
- Healthy People 2030, PA-05, adults who do enough aerobic and muscle-strengthening activityodphp.health.gov
