The 4 Types of Exercises You Need to Be Healthy

When you’re thinking of exercising, you may imagine strenuous activities such as running or biking that makes you turn flush, breathe hard and drip with sweat. But aerobic activity is only one type of exercise, and even though it is important for advancing your fitness level, there are also three other types of exercises which are important such as balance training, flexibility training and strength training.

Each kind of exercise is vital in its own way, doing the 4 types will help you maximize your fitness level and prevent injury

To know the most important information about these 4 exercises, we will discuss the benefits of each exercise and how to include them into your workout routine.

Aerobic exercise
Aerobic exercises, such as running, swimming or dancing, affect your cardiovascular system by getting your heart rate up and making you breathe harder. Aerobic exercise helps you decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and the risk of cancer.

Balance exercise
Balance exercises, expand your ability to stabilize and control your body’s position. Balance exercise is mostly important for older adults, since balance gets worse with age. But it can be helpful for everyone, including people who become pregnant or who have lost or gained a lot of weight, which can affect center of gravity.

Strength exercise
Strength exercises, such as crunches, push-ups and weight lifting, work on your muscles by using resistance. Strength exercise increases your lean muscle mass, which can help in losing weight, because lean muscle can burn more calories than other types of tissue.

Flexibility exercise
Flexibility exercises, may improve the motion at your joints and stretch your muscles. They can reduce the risk of injury during activities and sports and improve your flexibility.
Preferably, you should incorporate all four types of exercise in your workouts. But that does not mean you need to do four separate workouts. You should combine some exercises together, like balance and strength and balance. For example, you could do bicep curls while standing on one leg. Some workouts, such as yoga, includes flexibility, balance and strength exercises.

Christelle Bedrossian
Dietitian-Nutritionist
Beirut, Lebanon