Tips and Exercises to Increase Health-Related Physical Fitness

Now that we understand the importance of being physically fit along with the components of fitness, it is time to act on this knowledge. But first, here are some important guidelines to remember from EHE International Health Coach Gayle Salomon:

• Focus on you; don’t make comparisons with others unless it is used for motivation.
• Physical fitness is about movement and activity. Try an exercise and see if you can do it; worry about performance later.
• When just starting, remember to take it slow—progression is the aim.
• Once you’ve become comfortable doing certain exercises/running certain distances, look to gradually increase the workload.
• Age is a big factor in progression: the older you are, the more time it will take and the more care you should give to your fitness regimen.
• When you start getting comfortable, you can switch up your routine by adding or targeting different muscle groups; just try something totally new so that you can keep improving.
• Observe what you are doing so that progression may take place. Monitor your heart rate, count your steps, and time your runs. Take your exercise routine seriously by tracking your progress.

By adhering to these simple guidelines, you will have a safe and healthy mentality when looking to increase your physical fitness.

Exercises

Body composition: Becoming physically fit will naturally help your body composition, so there aren’t specific exercises for body composition.

Cardiorespiratory endurance: Some effective exercises are: walking, jogging, running, sprinting, interval training, bicycling, and swimming. Remember to start out slow; look to increase your workload as you feel more comfortable.

Muscular strength and endurance: Effective exercises include push-ups, sit-ups, squats, lunges, and calf-raises. For muscular strength, you should look to perform these movements with added weight; for muscular endurance, you should look to practice timed tests in which you perform as many repetitions as you can, without sacrificing form. Beginners should first get used to the movements and then look to improve. More advanced individuals should look to increase resistance for strength and increase time, repetitions, or both for endurance.

Flexibility training: These exercises should be performed every day, ideally twice a day — 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes before going to bed. Flexibility training is similar to muscular training in that it is specific to target location (i.e., if you stretch your legs, your shoulders won’t necessarily increase in flexibility). Some effective exercises are: hamstring and quadriceps stretching (standing, sitting, or lying down), spinal twists, knees-to-chest, back extensions, forward and side lunges, shoulder stretches, and neck stretches. Beginners and advanced individuals should go as far as they can until they feel slightly uncomfortable — but not to the point of pain — and look to stretch, lunge, etc. a little further each time.