What Is A Good Daily Workout Routine?

It's no secret, regular exercise is good for you but just how good it is for you may take you by surprise. Exercise not only improves your health, but it also improves your mood and well-being. Regular exercise can stave off chronic disease like diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, high cholesterol and heart disease. Exercise can also be a pick-me-up, improving your mood and self esteem. Exercise gives you more energy while also improving your sleep habits. And if that's not enough, exercise may also improve your sex life. Following a safe and effective daily exercise routine can have you reaping all of these benefits.

Warm Up

Start your workout routine with a warm up. This should consist of about 10 minutes of exercise including stretching and a light-intensity dynamic movement. For example, you may begin by stretching your upper body, then lower body for five minutes total, then doing a light jog for another five minutes. The warm up is essential because it gets your mind and body ready for exercise. It increases your body temperature and blood flow and readies your cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

Aerobic Exercise

According to the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association, healthy adults aged 18 to 65 should engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise five days per week. This amount will keep you healthy and reduce your risk of disease. If you wish to lose weight, you may need to increase your workout time to include a duration longer than 30 minutes. Accumulating 300 minutes of aerobic exercise is ideal for weight loss, reports the American College of Sports Medicine. Aerobic exercise is dynamic movement that includes walking, jogging, biking, swimming, hiking or participating in an aerobics class.

Resistance Exercise

Resistance training increases muscular strength and helps promote lean body mass. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends performing resistance training for at least two non-consecutive days per week. If you wish to add resistance training to your daily routine, you may do so by working alternating muscles each day. The key is to give your muscles a rest for at least 24 hours so that they may build up and adapt to the resistance exercise you are challenging them with. Work up to performing one to three sets of eight to 12 repetitions of each exercise.

Cool Down and Flexibility Training

The final part of your daily workout routine should incorporate a cool down and flexibility training. After you are done with your aerobic exercise, take at least five minutes to perform light-intensity dynamic work, along the same lines as your warm up, to bring your heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure and breathing rates back down to resting nice and slowly. After your whole workout is through, resistance training included, stretch out your muscles. Be sure to stretch all the muscles you used as stretching can reduce injury and help your muscles recover from the stress of exercise more quickly.