Exercising for health, and even training for improving athletic performance, can be roughly divided into those activities designed to increase endurance and those designed to increase strength.  Maximizing health or sports performance requires doing both types.

Endurance increasing exercises have at their core a high number of repetitions against low resistance and either no rest, or little rest between bouts of exertion.   This leads to a sustained elevation in heart rate and breathing rate.  Such activities are also referred to as aerobic exercises or cardiovascular exercises.  Examples of these include running, bicycling, swimming, rowing, etc.

Although the involved muscles do improve their tone and coordination, and may gain some strength, the main improvement is in endurance of the involved muscles as well as of the heart and lungs.  Indeed, improvement in the function of these two vital organs is the primary purpose of cardiovascular exercise.  As a result, if one had to choose between endurance and strength exercises, performing the former alone would likely to lead to better overall health than performing only the latter.

How much cardiovascular exercise is ideal?  This may vary from one individual to another, especially if there are underlying medical conditions that may be exacerbated by unsupervised exertion.  For an overall healthy person a minimum of 20 minutes of such exercise is typically required 4 to 6 times per week.  However, as these are extremely repetitive motions, overuse injuries are a risk.  In general, therefore, unless training for a specific event or goal, routinely performing such exercises for more than 40 minutes may increase the risk of such overuse injuries.  To further help decrease injury risk, it helps to cross train.  This means alternating the type of aerobic exercise – running some days and bicycling other days, for example.

Whatever the type of activity, the intensity of the exercise should be enough to elevate the heart rate into a range of 65 to 85% of maximum.  A healthy individual’s maximum heart rate may be estimated by subtracting years of age from the number 220.  For example, a 20 year old may have an expected maximal heart rate of 200 beats per minute, so for that person the ideal heart range to improve aerobic fitness would be 130-170 beats per minute.  Heart rate during exercise may be monitored by various heart rate monitors, or by manually counting one’s pulse over a period of time, up to one minute.  The longer that period, the more accurate the heart rate.  That is to say, counting the pulse for 30 seconds and multiplying by 2 is more accurate than counting the pulse for 10 seconds and multiplying by 6.  For the purpose of gauging whether or not one is in the ideal range for aerobic exercise, however, just counting the pulse for 6 seconds and multiplying by 10 is often sufficient.  Some medications, such as beta blockers (often used to treat conditions such as hypertension, for example), decrease heart rate and so patients taking such medications need to consult with their physician before beginning an exercise regimen.

The benefits of aerobic exercises are vast.  Not only do the health and function of the heart and lungs increase, there is improvement in balance and muscular coordination, blood pressure control, muscle tone, glucose metabolism, stamina and overall fitness.  There may also be mental and psychological benefits.  Calories too are consumed during aerobic exercise as the body’s metabolic rate is increased.  However, this rate quickly tends to return to baseline following completion of exertion, so there is not much lasting benefit from such exercises in terms of burning calories.  As a result, although aerobic exercises do help reduce weight, they are in general not the most effective exercises to eliminate body fat because the basal metabolic rate (the rate at which calories are burned by the body while at rest) is not typically increased significantly by these exercises.

Aerobic exercises may be divided into three types – non-weight bearing (for example, swimming, rowing, bicycling), weight bearing low impact (for example, walking, stair-climbing, cross-country skiing, skating), and weight bearing high impact (running, jump-roping).  Unless there is some underlying medical condition, any of these are fine.  Those with lower extremity or spine problems may exacerbate their symptoms and also the underlying joint problems if they perform a lot of high impact exercises.  For these individuals, the non-weight bearing types are usually best.

In contrast to increasing endurance, strength increasing exercises require a low number of repetitions against high resistance and significant rest periods between bouts of exertion.  Sustained heart rate elevation is therefore not achieved, and so cardiovascular benefits and increase in stamina are typically not dramatic.  However, there is improvement in muscle coordination, bulk, and increase in lean body mass.  This, in turn, leads to an increased basal metabolic rate.  As a result of strength training, therefore, the rate at which the body burns calories is increased - even while at rest.  For fat loss, therefore, strength training exercises alone are usually more effective than aerobic exercises alone.  As stated at the beginning, however, ideally both should be performed to maximize health and sports performance.  One can actually combine both by performing a resistance circuit, in which a set of resistance exercises for one muscle group is followed by a set of resistance exercises for another group, which is then followed by a set for yet another group, and so on, until several groups have been so exercised at the completion of the circuit, which can then be repeated for a total of 3 or 4 times.  If the rest interval between sets is less than 60 seconds, elevated heart rate is maintained and so the resistance exercises also become aerobic exercise.  However, gains in absolute strength may not be as rapid or dramatic when compared to exercises for pure strength training.

The resistance for pure strength training should be of such magnitude that no more than 6 to 10 repetitions of a given exercise are possible.  Maintaining proper form for each repetition is crucial to avoiding injury.  Jerky movements should especially be avoided.  One good strategy is to perform a warm up set of 15 to 25 repetitions at a lower resistance and then do 2 to 3 sets of no more than 6 to 10 repetitions against much higher resistance.  Giving the muscle group some rest between sets allows performing the next set at a similar high level of resistance.  Each muscle group should be exercised no more than 2 to 3 times per week to allow for muscle growth and recovery.  Doing resistance training more often than that risks muscle breakdown as well as overuse injury.  Doing an occasional maximal single resistance to test gains in strength is reasonable, however.

It is important to remember that individuals have different body proportions and so not every resistance exercise is suited for every person.  This is even more so for machine based exercises because, unlike free weights (which offer infinite adjustment and lifting angles), machines have only a set range of adjustments to try to accommodate a wide range of body types.  Regardless whether performed on resistance machines or with free weights, exercises which cause pain should be avoided.  In this aspect, it is important to distinguish actual pain from the typical discomfort often associated with high exertional exercise.  What follows are some general guidelines to help avoid injury when performing resistance exercises.

4)     Stretching the hamstrings, quadriceps, calf and heel cord should be done before and after this work out.