How much exercise is enough for women?

Portion of fitness needed by females is different from males.

For the first time, researchers have established how much exercise women should be able to do for their age and found that their capacity is slightly lower than men’s.

It also declines a bit faster than men’s as they grow older.

Women whose exercise capacity was less than 85 percent of what it should be were twice as likely to die within eight years, the researchers found.

Until now, the only guidelines available were based on men and it wasn’t certain whether they applied to women as well. But as more women are being included in medical research, gender differences in some diseases and other health issues are emerging.

The researchers found that to be true for fitness levels. They used the results of 5,721 exercise stress tests on women over 35 to figure out what should be considered normal for them compared to the established fitness levels for men.

Read more: How much exercise is enough for women?