You may associate exercise with sweat, aches, and tight clothes that announce every bulge.  Maybe you plan on exercising every day but never actually get to it.  The truth is, exercise doesn’t have to be like this.  It’s actually a great stress reliever! Exercise is any type of physical activity we perform in an effort to improve our health, improve performance, and shape our bodies.  Depending on your goals (losing weight, getting healthy, training for a sport, etc), exercise plans vary greatly in intensity, time, and activities.  This can mean walking up and down stairs during recess, walking the family dog, taking a hike with some friends or family, and mowing the lawn.  Once you learn you can incorporate exercise into your everyday life, it stops being such a pain and hassle.

       The benefits of exercise are incredible.  The good news is that you don’t need much exercise to get the benefits, even a few minutes a day will greatly improve your health.  The general rule is to try and get 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity five days of the week.  Some of these benefits include:

-         Boosting your mood

-         Improving your sleep

-         Reducing stress

-         Reducing risks of heart disease and cancer

-         Giving you more energy

-         Losing weight

      There are three main elements of fitness: endurance, strength, and flexibility.  It is important to incorporate a little of each in you regular exercise.  All have their own benefits.  Let’s look at them a little closer:

Endurance: is achieved through aerobic activities.  Aerobic means “with air” and includes activities that make your heart beat faster and make you breath harder.  Good examples are basketball, running, biking, hiking, tennis, swimming, soccer.  These types of activities help strengthen your heart and lungs and will help you lose weight.

Strength: involves toning and strengthening your muscles.  Many times people think of lifting weights, however that is not only way to achieve strengthening goals.  It can be done through crunches, push-ups, and chin-ups.  Also, many recreational activities such as rock-climbing and wrestling incorporate lots of strength training. The benefits include toning your body and losing weight.

Flexibility: allows muscles and joints to bend and move easily through their full range of motion.  It’s important to include this in your exercise because it is the number one way to help prevent injuries.  Be sure to stretch before you participate in any sort of physical activity.  Also, activities such as yoga and Pilates are great ways to improve your flexibility.

      We are just covering the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exercise.  There is much more to exercising and your local library and school library have plenty of information and books on the subject.  Remember, even just a walk around your block a few times a week has great benefits.  So what are you waiting for?  Get moving!