Types Of Physical Exercise

And Their Effects

  Listen to the audio version of 'Types Of Physical Exercise And Their Effects' here.

Physical exercise is the performance of some activity in order to develop or maintain physical fitness and overall health.  It is often directed towards honing athletic ability or skill. 

Frequent and regular physical exercise is an important component in the prevention of some diseases such as heart disease, cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes, and obesity.

Exercises are generally grouped into three types depending on the overall effect they have on the human body:

• Flexibility exercises such as stretching improve the range of motion of muscles and joints.
  
  
• Aerobic exercises such as walking and running focus on increasing cardiovascular endurance.
  
  
• Anaerobic exercises such as weight training, functional training or sprinting increase short-term muscle strength.

Physical exercise is considered important for maintaining physical fitness including a healthy weight, building and maintaining healthy bones, muscles, and joints, promoting physiological well-being, reducing surgical risks and strengthening the immune system.

Proper nutrition is just as important to your health as exercise is. When exercising it becomes even more important to have a good diet to ensure the body has the correct ratio of macronutrients, whilst also providing ample micronutrients, to aid the body with the recovery process following strenuous exercise.  Proper rest and recovery is as important to your health as it is exercise, otherwise the body exists in a permanently injured state and will not improve or adapt adequately to the exercise.

The above two factors can be compromised by psychological compulsions, misinformation, a lack of organization, or a lack of motivation.  These all lead to a decreased state of health.

Exercise benefits:

Frequent and regular exercise has been shown to help prevent or to cure major illnesses such as high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, Type II diabetes, insomnia, and depression. Researchers have shown that three 10 minute walks burn as many calories and exercise the heart as well as one 30 minute walk.  Exercise can also increase energy and raise one's threshold for pain.

Both aerobic and anaerobic exercises also work to increase the mechanical efficiency of the heart by increasing cardiac volume, or myocardial thickness.

Some Myths suggest that excessive exercise can cause immediate death.  Death by exercise has some small basis in fact.  Water intoxication can result from prolific sweating combined with the consumption of large amounts of water (e.g. when running a marathon).  Weightlifting can make you short or prevents growth.

It is a common belief that training a particular body part will preferentially shed the fat on that part, for example, it is believed that doing sit ups is the most direct way to reduce subcutaneous belly fat.  This is false; one cannot reduce fat from one area of the body to the exclusion of others.

Most of the energy derived from fat gets to the muscle through the bloodstream and reduces stored fat in the entire body.  Sit ups may improve the size and shape of abdominal muscles but will not specifically target belly fat loss.  Instead, such exercise may help reduce overall body fat affecting all parts of the body as determined by genetics.  In fact, belly fat will often be the last fat removed from the body.