The best exercises solve your fitness problems. Because of life choices with food and work, staying in shape requires exercise. By choosing the proper exercises, you can get and stay in shape.
Exercise uses speed, power, endurance, or flexibility to improve a person’s fitness and health. Just as vitamins are a supplement for food, so is exercise a supplement for natural activities. The activity you do not perform naturally to keep muscles in shape and fat in check can be achieved with exercise. Thus there is a purpose to exercise. The best exercise closes the gaps between natural activities.
Overwhelming evidence exists that lifelong exercise is associated with a longer lifespan, delaying the onset of 40 chronic conditions/diseases. Exercise lowers the risk of anxiety, atherosclerosis, back pain, cancer, chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and osteoporosis. There are hundreds of exercises to choose from. Basic elements of all exercises are motion, breathing, hydration, warm-up, and cool-down.
Many people develop the wrong view about exercise.
First, exercise is not a substitution for natural activities. You cannot replace life functions, but you can supplement them. Don’t sit around all day and think one hour of exercise will fix that. Add exercise to increases your metabolism and improves your fitness. Exercise goes into the category of creatine, protein shakes, and vitamins. They do not substitute. They supplement.
Second, exercise should first meet your needs and not your wants. Okay, you want big arms but is that what you need right now. While resistance training can build an impressive body, it won’t help if the body is covered with fat. It is not to say that an obese person can’t do resistance training.
But, an overweight person needs cardio, swimming, or high-intensity interval training. Thus, cardio is the best exercise for an obese person, and they can supplement with resistance training. Just like with a diet, you must eat your vegetables before you eat dessert. The cardio helps the obese person when they do resistance training.
The best exercise improves the physical skills you need to work, play, and live.
The best exercises increase functionality and performance. The functionality that training increase is mechanical and natural. You use mechanical functionality to perform exercises. They involve concentric, eccentric, and isometric movements. Also, mechanical functionality involves single-joint movement.
Activities that increase natural functionality are walking, bending, reaching, running, and squatting. Thus, they use compound movements. The best exercises are enjoyable, doable, and improves your health and fitness. They enhance speed, power, endurance, and flexibility.
One of the goals of exercises is to improve physical performance. Some people can build muscle in a gym, and then some need to go to boot camp. When selecting the exercises, you need to meet your fitness goals, make sure you can live with them. For you to reach your fitness goal requires concentration, focus, and drive. Trying to focus on something you don’t like will make the road harder, if not unbearable.
Which exercise best meets your health and fitness goals?
Resistance Training:
Resistance training reigns supreme when it comes to reaching a fitness goal. You can use it in many ways. Use your imagination, and you will find you can add resistance to any exercise. Resistance makes the exercise harder. The more challenging a workout, the more your body must adapt to keep up. Resistance comes in the form of weights, bands, parachutes, and vests. Also, some unorthodox forms of resistance are ropes, tires, and gravity.
The more resistance, the better the results. You can use resistance training to increase speed, power, endurance, and functionality. Also, you can perform resistance training anywhere with a vest or your body weight. You can use it in the gym or outdoors. Thus, you can use it at home. If you are looking to improve your health, about 10 minutes is all you need. But, if you want to muscle up, then you need at least 20 minutes. For those who want to do great things, you need to stay at it for one hour or more.
The only box it misses is flexibility. While resistance training makes you strong, it also makes you stiff. Muscles tighten up as they grow and become stronger. To address the flexibility issue, you should stretch after each training. Tight muscles can strain and put pressure on tendons and ligaments.
If you like to have fun while you are working out, then sports are for you. One of the best ways to improve your fitness and performance is through sports. Also, sports meet the compatibility box. You can always find a sport that you enjoy, doable, and meets your needs.
Sports prepare you more for real life than any other exercise. You can use your functionality and performance from sports in real-life. Sports force you to use compound movements that burn a lot of energy and cause the body to adapt. You can play basketball, tennis, golf, or run a marathon to do compound movements. If you take part in sports, you will see changes.
Sports fail short of the top spot despite being the most fun exercise. One setback to sports is that you must do them outside. You can resistance train in your living room. Also, sports only improve your performance with the skills involved in the sport. If you want to lose weight, then sports may be the best exercise for you.
Running:
Many people love to run, and for a good reason. It doesn’t get any more natural than running. All living organisms run. It is an essential life function that is necessary for survival. It is also part of the fight-flight principle. At some point in life, no matter how old you are, you will need to run. Running crosses many boxes like the other two exercises. It can build speed, power, and endurance. Also, it helps with flexibility and functionality.
Running is one of the best compound exercises you can perform. It works with every muscle in the body. You can use running to lose weight and improve the health of your heart and lungs. Some say it’s the best exercise in the world. It sounds like it. Another nice thing about running is you can start at your own pace. Also, you can start off walking, then graduate to speed walking, and finally move up to running.
While you can run outside or inside with the help of a treadmill, running takes a toll on the joints. Also, you can injure yourself while running. Despite the best safety precautions, sheen splits, ankle turns, and knee injuries happen. Anytime you do thousands of steps at high speed, an accident can happen. During one training, a foot may hit the ground 10,000 times. The wear and tear take their toll on the bottom. If not for the injury factor running would make the top spot.
Swimming:
Where running falls, short swimming excels. It is one of the best compound exercises on the joints and works many muscles. Also, it uses a lot of calories. Swimming increases speed, endurance, and power.
There are many different types of swims, from the breaststroke to the backstroke. Each one helps to improve your fitness. This exercise is for those who love to move but have joint problems.
Many people love to swim and be in the water. So, swimming checks the compatibility box for most. You can always add swimming to an off-day workout for other types of exercises. Like running, it helps stretch out the muscles, and it is even relaxing.
After weight training or running, you can enjoy a rest day with a couple of laps in the pool. Thus, swimming improves your performance with other exercises.
The one setback with swimming is that you live on land, not the water. The SAID principle states that performance is specific to training. The purpose of an exercise is to improve your functionality and performance at what you do. Swimming will make you better in the water but not on land.
Since you live on the ground, you need strong joints to stand, walk, bend and lift. Swimming cannot improve your performance with natural activities. Again, you can’t swim in the living room unless you are rich. Swimming is great for performance but not for functionality. So, please don’t use it out of context. If you are going to swim for exercise, add some resistance training to improve your joints and bones.
Stretching:
No, I am not running out of ideas. Stretching is an excellent exercise because it prevents injuries and improves muscles. Stretching works on the muscles, and it also improves joints, ligaments, and tendons. Some of the best exercises for stretching are yoga and Pilates. Stretching improves posture and flexibility. When a person experiences back pain, one of the first things they do is stretch. Also, stretching helps improves your mental health.
Stretching is like swimming. They both focus on a limited range of functionality and performance. They are role players, auxiliary exercises. Don’t know them when using the right way to take your training to the next level. It will help if you stretch after every workout as part of a cool down. Some people stretch before working out, but we now know that is a mistake. A brief walk or jog before working out is best. What makes stretching one of the best exercises is that you should do it with every workout.
Stretching has many limitations as the number one exercise. But it is a great exercise when combined with other exercises or a great diet. Stretching is not Batman but Robin. It is a sidekick that needs the help of a superhero to get the job done. You can add it to another exercise or team it up with a super diet. Use another exercise or diet to accomplish most of your health and fitness goals.
Which exercise is the best for you?
One of the biggest misconceptions about exercise is that it should meet wants and not needs. The best exercise for you is the one that meets your needs. Sometimes you may have to combine a couple of exercises for your needs. If you have bad knees, then you need to build your training around your knees.
Use swimming to engage the supporting muscles and keep them active. Also, some stretching to ease the pressure that the injury is placing on ligaments and joints. Consult your doctor before you start resistance training or running. The severity of your injury will determine what your options are.
In keeping in line with your needs, next, you need to consider your schedule. Some jobs provide you with exercise. A construction worker’s training should be different than a customer service representative’s training. You should find a workout that you like. But, needs can trash a fitness goal. Bad Knees and a job will not take no for an answer.
Find a workout that you can do for 30 minutes to one hour. You do have a life that you need to live. Finally, don’t forget exercise is a supplement, not a substitution for natural activities. You can do enough natural activities to take care of your fitness needs. Also, you can drop down anywhere and do pushups or body squats. The exercise’s point is to give your body a little extra to take it to the next level.
