All about Exercise

Alright. Call it what you want, exercise, workout, training, gymnastics or physical activity. It’s all the same thing. But I will stick to the word exercise for the sake of simplicity. 🙂

Now exercise is a broad topic and has many many categories. It could range from anything basic (aerobic) like walking, jogging, dancing, yard work like raking, digging, lawn moving, 🚶🏃💃 or something intense (anaerobic) like High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), Pilates, weight lifting, sprints, jump rope, etc.🏋 Exercise also includes sports like football, baseball, golf, swimming, etc.,⛹⚽🏉🎾🏸🏌🏊and even flexibility and stretching exercises.

So basically, exercise is any activity requiring physical effort that is done to improve and maintain health and fitness. Makes sense? Are we on the same page so far? I hope so! 😏

Now why is exercise so important? What is the difference between the different type of exercises? Which is the most effective? Which should we be doing? When and how should it be done? Let’s go through it one by one, shall we? 🙂

We all know that exercise is good for us. More often than not, our inner self tells us to exercise, whether just get up and go for a walk, run around, play some sport, or just basically get moving. But we all are guilty of ignoring it. We ignore the signals our bodies give us, and more often than not, end up sitting on our bottoms all day long, don’t we?

The reality is that our bodies are not built for such a sedentary existence. They are built to move! Our blood depends on us moving around to be able to circulate properly. Sitting down for long periods of time makes us agitated. Our hunched sitting position not just affects our spine, but also our lungs, as sitting in such a position gives our lungs less space to expand. So then what happens? The amount of oxygen that fills our lungs becomes limited. Even our concentration levels go down because our brains require oxygen to stay alert. This obviously is not a good thing, is it? 😧

Have you ever experienced numbness when sitting for long periods of time? 😭 Do we ever give a thought as to why it happens?🤔 Sitting for long compresses our soft tissues, blocking our nerves, arteries and veins. This limits nerve signals, and in turn causes the numbness. Sometimes it even causes swelling because of limited blood flow! Scary right? 😨

Now that we know how not moving around affects our bodies, it obviously makes sense as to how important exercising is. So what really are the benefits of exercising? Well for starters, it helps us feel better physically. It helps boost stamina. It obviously helps loose and maintain our body weight, strengthens and tones our muscles, keeps diseases at bay, improves flexibility, improves our mental health, and so many more things, the best one being it makes us happy! And who doesn’t want to be happy?! 😁

If we break down the types of exercise, we can safely say there are three types, as we discussed earlier, the first one being aerobic, the second anaerobic and the third flexibility.

Now aerobic exercises are the ones that are often referred to as cardio, because they improve our cardiovascular health. Aerobic basically means “with oxygen“. So logically, aerobic exercises are the ones that use oxygen in the body’s energy generating process. These exercises usually are performed at little to moderate levels of intensity over a long period of time, say a 30 minute walk.🚶

The exact opposite of aerobic is anaerobic (without oxygen). These exercises are the ones that enhance power and build muscle mass. Since they don’t require oxygen, they are usually for a very short duration but with high intensity, for example, a 5-7 minute HIIT exercise.🏋

So what about flexibility exercises? Stretching is usually done before and/or after a workout, just because it warms up and relaxes our muscles before and after we exercise. 💺

Now each one of us are different right? Our bodies are different, our metabolism is different, our energy levels are different, our goals are different and so on and so forth. So it makes sense that each type of exercise works differently for each one of us, depending on our needs and goals, correct? 🎯 So which is the best? Obviously, it depends on what we are looking for. If we want to increase our heart health, or just move about, we will go for cardio.🏃 If our aim is to loose weight, we will go for something like HIIT. 🏋 If we want to improve our body’s flexibility, we will choose to stretch more often right? So each of us have to pick and choose our exercises accordingly.

The timing of our exercise is very important too.⌚ Some prefer to do it in the mornings before starting off their day. What this does is our bodies use up excess fat for energy when it is in a fasting state. Some people prefer to exercise after work, around the evening, and some prefer to end their day by exercising. What we have to do is find the time that is right for us and stick to it. This is the most important part of exercising. Consistency is the key. 🔑💯

With all that said and done, I hope I have clearly put one message out. Get moving. Don’t sit in your back side all day. Yes, there will be times when we don’t feel like doing anything at all, but that is exactly when we need to work even harder and push ourselves to it, and trust me, you will definitely see results, I promise! 🙂

Let’s get in the best shape of our lives, together! 💪

Until next time, take care! 👋

P.S. If you have not checked my first post, please do check it out. Also, take a look at my second post. It is about my thoughts on “Diets”. I would really appreciate if you check it out! Also subscribe and feel free to leave a comment. It could be your opinion, a suggestion or anything else. Oh and, if you feel like someone you know can benefit from my posts or would be interested in reading it, please go ahead and share the link with them. It would mean alot. Thanks! ☺

–Nausheen