Fitness and Exercise: Health Benefits, How to Get Started, and How to Get Better

What It Means to Be Fit

According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans set forth by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), there are five components of physical fitness:

• Cardiorespiratory Fitness Your VO2 max is a commonly used measure of this. It’s your body’s ability to uptake and utilize oxygen (which feeds all of your tissues), something that is directly related to your health and quality of life, says Abbie Smith-Ryan, PhD, professor and director of the Applied Physiology Laboratory at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
• Musculoskeletal Fitness This includes muscle strength, endurance, and power.
• Flexibility This is the range of motion of your joints.
• Balance This is your ability to stay on your feet and steady to avoid falls.
• Speed This is how quickly you can move.

Types of Fitness

There are a few main components of fitness, all of which are important for building a well-rounded exercise routine. Below, you will find the ones included in the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which HHS highlights as the components that should be included in weekly exercise. (It’s worth noting that many definitions of fitness include other components as well, such as endurance, muscular endurance, power, speed, balance, and agility — as mentioned above.).

1. Cardiovascular fitness: This type of fitness refers to the ability of the heart, lungs, and circulatory system to supply oxygen-rich blood to the muscles during physical activity. Activities that can improve cardiovascular fitness include running, cycling, swimming, and dancing.
2. Muscular strength and endurance: This type of fitness focuses on building and maintaining muscular strength and endurance. Resistance training, weightlifting, and bodyweight exercises like push-ups and squats can help improve muscular strength and endurance.
3. Flexibility: Flexibility fitness refers to the ability of the body to move freely and easily through a full range of motion. Stretching exercises, yoga, and Pilates are all great ways to improve flexibility.
4. Balance and stability: Balance and stability are essential for maintaining proper posture and preventing falls or injuries. Activities like tai chi, yoga, and balance exercises can help improve balance and stability.
5. Agility and coordination: Agility and coordination are important for athletes and can improve overall physical performance. Activities like sports, dance, and martial arts can help improve agility and coordination.

Strength Training

Strength training is an important way to improve mobility and overall functioning, particularly as you get older. “As you age, you lose muscle mass, which can have a significant impact on the quality of life. Strength exercises build bones and muscle, and more muscle protects your body from falls and the fractures that can happen in older age,” says Robert Sallis, MD, a family medicine doctor at Kaiser Permanente in Fontana, Califo

Rest and Recovery

Building in rest and recovery days allows time for your body to repair the natural damage that occurs to muscles during exercise. Exercise, by definition, puts stress on the muscles and the body. The repairing or healing of that stress is how you get stronger (and fitter). But you need to give the body adequate rest after a workout for that recovery process to happen.

Recovery days can include no physical activity at all or they may look like an active recovery day, which means doing low-intensity, low-impact forms of exercise, such as walking or gentle yoga. Dr. Sallis generally recommends doing some activity every day, such as a 10-minute walk outdoors.

For rest and recovery days, the idea isn’t that you’re immobile on your couch; it’s just that you’re not pushing yourself to a point where physical activity feels strenuous or challenging. 

rnia, and chairman of the Exercise Is Medicine initiative with the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

According to the ACSM, the definition of strength or is exercise that is “designed to improve muscular fitness by exercising a muscle or a muscle group against external resistance.” Activities that answer this call include lifting weights, using resistance bands or your body weight, carrying heavy loads, and even strenuous gardening, per the Physical Activity Guidelines from HHS.  

How Much Exercise Do You Need?

Per the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, clocking either 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (such as brisk walking) or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity (such as jogging or running) per week is the lowest amount of exercise that promotes good health. (Doing a combination of moderate and vigorous activity is also okay, as long as you spread it out over at least two days during the week.)

Additionally, do muscle-strengthening activity at least two days a week, targeting all of the major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms), according to the guidelines.

There is currently no recommendation for flexibility or mobility work, according to the HHS. But older adults in particular should incorporate balance training into their weekly physical activity.

Doing more physical activity has been linked to even greater health benefits, particularly up to 300 weekly minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (after which the incremental benefits start to flatten out). And know that these baseline fitness recommendations, while they are enough to promote good long-term health, may not be sufficient to meet certain health or fitness goals. (For example, you will need to exercise for a significantly longer amount of time each week if you want to train for a marathon.)

And know that extreme amounts of exercise may put increased stress on the body and can actually lead to some negative health effects; research has yet to determine what that upper limit might be, but the evidence so far suggests that it is at least several times the current weekly minimum recommendations.