Daily Exercise Routine Plan

Daily Exercise Routine Plan
Photo Credit Comstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images

Daily exercise routine plans may incorporate different kinds of exercise to enhance multiple elements of physical fitness, such as cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance or muscle strength. Your individual fitness goals and health condition help determine the intensity of your workout, and the specific exercises that you perform. Discussing your fitness goals with your doctor can help you design a safe and effective daily exercise-routine plan.

Aerobic Activity

Aerobic activity involves continuous and repetitive joint movements, such as walking, cycling or jogging. This activity helps control your weight, activates your immune system and lowers your risk of heart attacks, stroke and pulmonary disease. Your daily exercise routine plan may include 15 to 20 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise, which brings your heart rate to between 50 and 70 percent of your maximum heart rate.

Core Exercises

Your core includes muscles in your abdomen and throughout your midsection. These muscles help you maintain stability during physical activity, and support a healthy posture. A healthy core also may reduce your risk of spinal injuries by toning small muscles, which support the lumbar spine. The National Federation of Personal Trainers recommends daily exercise-routine plans that include five to 10 minutes of core exercises, which involve dynamic movements that challenge your center of gravity. You may perform floor abdominal exercises, such as jackknife situps. Balance and stability exercises with balance boards, physio balls and medicine balls can also target your core.

Weight Training

A daily exercise routine plan may include 25 minutes of weight-training exercise. Your fitness goals determine the specific exercises, and the number of repetitions, that you perform during the weight-training component of your routine. You may perform a full-body workout with exercise sets of 20 repetitions for weight-loss and general-fitness enhancement. Stamina-increasing workouts may include 12 repetitions with heavier weights, and strength-building workouts may require four repetitions with even heavier weights. Dividing full-body workouts into multiple days helps individual muscle groups get sufficient recovery between heavier weightlifting sessions. Your daily exercise-routine plan may divide a full-body workout into two or three days for stamina and strength-building workouts, respectively.

Stretching

Stretching exercises improve your flexibility, increase your range of motion and may enhance recovery from weight training by improving blood flow. Your daily exercise-routine plan may finish off with a set of stretching exercises, which target muscles that you worked during the weightlifting component of your routine. The hamstrings, lower back and calf muscles are common sites of tension. Stretching these muscles can also help you avoid injury. You may hold individual stretches for around 30 seconds. Stretching cold muscles can increase your risk of injury. Performing stretching exercises toward the end of your routine is safer than stretching before exercise, because your muscles are thoroughly warmed up.

References

Article reviewed by Leon Teeboom Last updated on: Mar 8, 2011

Must see: Photo Galleries

Member Comments