Articles on this website and other sources often talk about recommendations for exercise. In a nutshell, for general health benefits the guidelines suggest that adults should perform:

• Two and one-half hours of moderate-intensity OR
• One hour and 15 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity OR
• A combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity per week

Further, aerobic activity should be done in bouts of at least 10 minutes preferably spread out during the week.

Previously we have described how to determine "moderate" intensity using methods like stride rate, METs, Rating of Perceived Exertion, and even the Talk Test. The Talk Test states that if you are doing a physical activity and you can sing a song at the same time, you are at a light-intensity level. If you can’t sing but you can still talk fairly comfortably, you are in the moderate-intensity zone. If you are so breathless that you can’t sing or talk, you’re doing a high-intensity physical activity.

But how valuable, really, is the Talk Test compared to more advanced measures of intensity?
Other methods of gauging intensity include Percent of Heart Rate, Peak Oxygen Consumption, Ventilatory Threshold and Lactate Threshold. Each of these methods utilizes advanced technology that may not always be available during exercise and may not really be needed to determine if someone is working aerobically or anaerobically.

In 2004, an article in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise¹ showed that the Talk Test was effective in approximating Ventilator Threshold on both treadmill and cycle. Ventilatory Threshold describes the point in which exercise intensity increases and becomes more anaerobic. Specifically, the study had general exercisers recite the Pledge of Allegiance during exercise and then state if talking was comfortable or not. In the study they found that “when comfortable speech was no longer possible, the exercise intensity consistently exceeded guidelines for exercise prescription.”

What about for more advanced exercisers?
A recent article in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research² describes a study similar to the one mentioned above. But this time with a group of 14 well-trained individuals. In this study, the Talk Test was still found to be strongly related to physiologic thresholds such as Ventilator Threshold.

The bottom line is...
When exercising, regardless of being a beginner or advanced exerciser, the Talk Test is an effective and simple tool to gauge exercise intensity. Individuals should exercise at an intensity in which one cannot sing a song, but can talk comfortably if the goal is to work aerobically. Most of this is in regards to steady state aerobic exercise, but some more specific goals beyond just general health benefits may require higher intensities of work. For competitive fitness, studies have shown that higher intensities may be appropriate for up to 10-20% of total weekly exercise time. Thus if exercising 15 hours per week, then 1.5 to 3 hours should be at higher intensity (i.e., cannot sing or talk during exercise). As for team sports, in contrast to endurance athletes, the requirement for sport specific training requires somewhat greater than 20% of exercise performed at higher intensity.

So next time you are exercising, don’t hesitate to check your intensity with a conversation or song!

¹Persinger, R., Foster, C., Gibson, M., Fater, D.C.W., Porcari, J.P. Consistency of the Talk Test for Exercise Prescription. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc, 36(9): 1632-1636, 2004.
²Jeans, E.A., Foster, C., Porcari, J.P., Gibson, M., Doberstein, S. Translation of Exercise Testing to Exercise Prescription Using the Talk Test. J Strength Cond Res, 25(3): 590-596, 2011.