Daily Exercise

Daily exercise is one of the best things you can do for your health. It is important to get in at least 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week to maintain proper health.

Types of Exercise
There are three main types of daily exercise that are important to overall health. While you are performing your daily exercise, you should remember to work each of these three aspects of fitness into your routine.

Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise is extremely important to your health. It is also known as cardio exercise. This is any type if exercise that engages your heart and lungs for a lengthy period of time. There are many ways that you can get your daily dose of aerobic exercise:
- running/jogging
- walking
- biking
- swimming
- dancing
- playing sports such as basketball, soccer, tennis, volleyball, football, hockey, gymnastics, cheerleading
- kick-boxing

You probably get in a bit of aerobic exercise every day without even exercising on purpose. Get in more daily aerobic exercise by following these simple tips:
- Ride a bike to work
- Walk your kids to and from school
- Park at the farthest end of the parking lot at the store
- Always take the stairs instead of the elevator
- Go for a walk after dinner (which also helps with digestion)

If you can't fit in more than 10 minutes of exercise at a time, that's okay. Just do a few 10 minute intervals of exercise throughout the day. Studies have shown that breaking up an exercise routine into smaller segments is still quite effective to overall health.

Strength Training
Strength training includes any exercises that engage your muscles. Strength training is done to build, tone, and maintain muscles. Weight lifting is a simple way to accomplish this, as well as resistance training using resistance tubes and bands. If you are unsure of what exercises to do, search the Internet, reach a fitness magazine, or sign up at your gym to get help from a trainer. Practicing yoga and Pilates also help with strength training.

Strength training does more than just build and tone muscles to make you look good. As you grow older, you begin to lose muscle mass. Keeping your muscles engaged daily will help maintain them and let you perform simple daily activities without hurting yourself.

There are many muscles in your body. Be sure to engage all of your muscles in each of the main muscles groups. You can work one group per day or work a couple of groups together. You can even perform a circuit, which is a routine that quickly hits all of the muscle groups.
- Biceps
- Triceps
- Shoulders
- Upper and lower back
- Quads, hamstrings, calves, and glutes
- Back
- Chest
- Abdominals

Core strengthening is another area of strength training that focuses on making your core (your abdominals) strong and functional.

Flexibility
Flexibility is the most neglected of all exercise types that should be done on a daily or semi-daily basis. Many people don't even realize that being flexible is a vital part of fitness. Flexibility helps largely in preventive care. The more flexible you are, the less likely you will injure yourself while performing other types of exercises or even doing normal activities around the house.

Stretching exercises are the most basic way to have greater flexibility. Practicing yoga and Pilates are help with flexibility. One day's worth of exercise can be done just around a stretching routine or you can add 5-10 minutes of stretching after you complete your aerobic or strength exercises.

Stretching your muscles before and after both aerobic and strength training exercises will help minimize risk of injury. Be sure to stretch only when your muscles are warm, though, because stretching cold muscles or over-stretching can cause harm.

These three types of exercises should be performed daily, either on their own or in a combination, in order to help your body function at its healthiest.