A comprehensive physical fitness plan will require you to engage in several different forms of exercise. Stretching exercises increase flexibility; aerobics conditions your heart and lungs; strength training improves your body composition; and calisthenics develops several different abilities. Combining all four of these types of exercises can yield synergistic benefits.
Stretching Exercises
Warm up before any intense workout by performing stretching exercises. Flexibility reduces the chances of injury during more strenuous exercise. It can also make you more agile outside the gym, such as when climbing stairs. MayoClinic.com recommends performing stretching exercises for your neck, shoulders, lower back, hips, calves and thighs. Never overdo stretching exercises -- relax as soon as you feel pain. As you age, flexibility will allow you to retain many abilities you otherwise would have lost, and will improve your balance so that you are less likely to injure yourself.
Aerobics
Aerobic exercise is any exercise involving large muscles that you continue without a break for an extended length of time, as long as it raises your heart rate to between 60 and 80 percent of its maximum. Aerobic exercise offers two primary fitness benefits -- cardiovascular fitness and weight control. By raising your heart rate, aerobic exercise effectively conditions your heart. By burning calories, it helps you keep weight off. The Cleveland Clinic recommends at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, three times a week.
Strength Training
Strength training, such as weightlifting, is not just for professional bodybuilders. It can reverse age-related decline in muscle mass, thereby increasing your body's muscle-to-fat ratio. This raises your body's metabolism, making it easier for you to maintain a healthy weight. It also increases bone density and mental focus. Strength training can help you manage depression, arthritis, lower back pain, diabetes and osteoporosis. You will enjoy noticeable results from as little as two 20-minute workouts per week.
Calisthenics
Calisthenics refers to any repetitive exercise that uses your body weight as resistance -- as opposed to strength training, which uses external resistance. Push-ups and sit-ups are both calisthenic exercises. One of the primary advantages of calisthenics is that you don't need to buy equipment or join a gym. Calisthenics help you put it all together by developing and using strength, flexibility and cardiovascular fitness. Although you cannot build muscle with calisthenics as easily as you can with weightlifting, you can increase muscle tone. You can also use calisthenics to increase muscular endurance more effectively than you can with a muscle-building workout.
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