Cardio, Weights, Mobility, Full Body: What Are You Training For?

Remember when you made the New Year’s resolution to work out and be more active? Still planning on following through? If you’re having trouble even knowing where to begin, you’re not alone. With a new gym at every corner and fun workouts popping up, it can be tough to find a starting point.

The good news is, there’s only one question you need to ask yourself to make things easier – what are you actually looking to improve? Or, alternatively, what are you hoping to gain from your workout?

Not all exercises have the end goal of helping you to lose weight. Whether it’s to keep your physical body nimble and agile, or to gain a bit more muscle to impress a few people, or to just stay fit, there’s a workout for every purpose.

You’re probably wondering, why bother with mobility? Mobility is an indication of how efficiently we move, and working on it helps us reduce injuries that can come from doing other exercises or simple, daily activities i.e. squatting, bending and leaning over.

When it comes to exercises that help increase one’s flexibility, yoga stands out. This ancient Indian exercise helps reduce lower back pain, arthritis, headaches and carpal tunnel syndrome. The best part about yoga is that it doesn’t matter what your size and fitness levels are, you can still do basic poses without much of a challenge. When correctly done, yoga also helps to improve your overall posture, gently stretches joints and body parts like the hips, thighs, knees, and ankles, while also relieving back and neck pain.

While traditional yoga continues to enjoy evergreen interest, different types of yoga have also been introduced to meet its increasing popularity. Hot yoga expounds on cardio, while aqua and aerial yoga help to relieve stress on the joints through movements in water or by suspension in yoga hammocks.

While getting that gym membership may be the most obvious route towards a goal of body building and muscle toning, pumping iron isn’t the only route to get ripped. 

This is where calisthenics come in. For the uninitiated, calisthenics are exercises consisting of a variety of gross motor movements performed rhythmically, typically without any equipment or apparatus. Simply put, it is weight training, but with your body as the weight. A few common calisthenics exercises include push-ups, squats, sit-ups and crunches. The cool thing about these types of exercises is that the only thing you really need is a flat surface to do your exercise on. Other amenities like pull up bars and parallel bars are easily available in a lot of public parks. 

If you’re looking for more of a challenge, you can get your hands on some weights and put in the work. Similar to calisthenics, using weights in your workout will improve bone density and the strength of connective tissue, muscles, and tendons. All of this leads to improved motor performance and decreased injury risk. While getting yourself dumbbells is a good idea, you can still have makeshift weights and not spend a single cent. Great examples of this include substituting a dumbbell with a milk jug filled with sand, as well as wrapping socks filled with beans around your arm or leg to make arm and ankle weights.

Want to address resilient “love handles”? You’ll need a nutritious diet (which goes without saying) and cardiovascular exercises. Often called cardio, it involves any form of exercise that gets the heart pumping and blood flowing. This process helps to distribute oxygen throughout the body and break down fat, while also improving physical stamina. The better a person’s cardiovascular endurance, the more effective the delivery of oxygen to the body tissues, and the lower their breathing rate. 

There are plenty of exercises that help to improve one’s cardiovascular endurance, be it swimming, circuit training, running, or even boxing.  Some cardio exercises are also more fun than others – see the rise of dance-infused aerobics like Zumba, Body Combat or Pound. 

The most popular types of workouts to enhance overall athleticism is interval or cardio training like High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT calls for a cardio exercise (like burpees or jumping jacks) at a high intensity for a specific amount of time, followed by a short recovery or low intensity exercise period. With a HIIT regimen, it’s the quality of the workout that matters, not the quantity. HIIT also involves high Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption (EPOC), which means calories are being burnt, even after your workout.

What if you want a workout that specifically engages all muscle groups in the body? This is where full body workouts come in. Full body workouts involve engaging every muscle group in the body that helps to improve overall athleticism. These sort of workouts may involve a combination of dynamic (such as sit ups to activate the core) and static (plank) routines. Some common types of these workouts are boot camp styled.

There you have it. Just a few things to consider before you take the first step in your transformation. It is important to note that while all these workout options are great, other factors such as nutrition and sleep play an equally, and at times, more important role in your health. One should not be at the expense of the other. Working out and making that much-needed change in your lifestyle can be a lot simpler than you think. It isn’t always about signing up for a gym membership. To add even more incentive, AIA Vitality helps you track and measure your health, and even rewards you for the healthy choices you make.