Keeping yourself fit and active is the most essential thing that you can do for your overall well-being. We live in times when we are spoilt for choices, including the different types of workouts. You can choose various workouts based on your health requirements, ultimate fitness goals, and preferences
Types of Workouts in Gym
There are many types of workouts in the gym, but you should know the exact technique to perform them. Here are some of the most popular types of gym workouts and their benefits.
Cardio Workouts
One of the best types of workouts is cardio workout. Cardiovascular exercise, commonly referred to as cardio or aerobic exercise, is any type of exercise that raises your heart rate and improves the efficiency of your cardiovascular system.
These exercises involve continuous, rhythmic activities that engage large muscle groups. The different types of cardio workouts include the following:
- Running/Jogging: Outdoor or treadmill running
- Cycling: Riding a stationary bike or cycling outdoor
- Swimming: you can try different strokes like freestyle, breaststroke, or butterfly
- Jump Rope: Skipping rope is beneficial to get your heart rate up and burn calories
- Walking: It is the best cardio exercise. Do brisk walking to burn more calories
- Dancing: Different forms of dance based workouts can also help you with your fitness goals
- High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT: It alternates between high intensity short bursts of exercises followed by short periods of rest.
Benefits of cardio workouts
When listing the types of gym workouts, how can we forget cardio workouts? They are effective to support your heart health, help burn calories, and have various other benefits.
The benefits of cardio workouts are
1. Help in Weight Management
Cardio workouts are not just about weight loss, they offer a versatile range of benefits that can be tailored to your fitness goals.
By incorporating cardio workouts into your routine, you can manage your weight effectively, boost your metabolism, and support your heart health.
2. Increases Endurance and Stamina
If you want to build physical endurance and improve your stamina, then include cardio workouts as part of different types of workouts you do.
3. Improves Mood and Mental Health
Did you know that cardio workouts are great for your mental health? Here’s how. They stimulate the production of endorphins, which are natural mood lifters.
I remember feeling so much better after a long run, and it's not just me. Many people find that cardio workouts help them feel happier and more relaxed.
4. Aids in Weight Loss
Different types of workouts are recommended for weight loss and weight management, but one of the best are cardio workouts. Cardio workouts are effective for burning calories which helps in weight loss.
They lead to a negative energy balance, which helps in shedding extra inches and kilos from your body.
5. Boosts metabolism
Regular cardio can boost your metabolic rate, helping you burn more calories throughout the day.
6. Reduces Cholesterol Levels in the Body
Doing regular cardio workouts can help raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels and lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels in the body. This improves your overall cholesterol profile.
Benefits of Strength Training
Strength training is not just about building muscles, it's a long-term investment in your health and fitness. By focusing on improving your strength, endurance, and stamina, you're setting yourself up for a healthier, more active future.
Some of the main benefits of strength training are:
1. Increases Muscle Mass
Strength training stimulates the growth of muscle fibers, leading to an increase in muscle mass giving you a more toned look and lean physique.
2. Helps in Fat Loss
Combining strength training with cardio workouts and a low-calorie diet will be effective in fat loss. Did you know that muscles burn more calories at rest compared to fat tissue, which contributes to a higher overall calorie expenditure.
3. Supports Bone and Joint Health
A lot of times we are just focusing on weight loss through various types of workouts. But bone and joint health are often overlooked. You can include strength training to support bone and joint health.
Strengthening the muscles around joints can enhance joint stability and reduce the risk of injuries. Regular strength training can also improve flexibility and range of motion.
4. Improves Your Posture
Different types of workouts have different benefits. One benefit of strength training that is not talked about a lot is that it improves your posture. It helps develop the muscles that support good posture.
Improved posture can reduce the risk of back and neck pain and contribute to a more confident appearance.
Benefits of High-Intensity Interval Training
When talking about the different types of workouts, one of the names that cannot be missed is high-intensity interval training. High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a form of cardio workout that has gained a lot of popularity in recent times.
Unlike traditional cardio workouts, HIIT involves short bursts of intense exercise followed by periods of rest or low-intensity workouts, making it more time-efficient and effective for fat burning.
It alternates between short bursts of high intensity exercise and periods of rest or low-intensity workouts. The main benefits of including HIIT in your workout routine are:
1. Helps in Fat Burning
HIIT is effective for burning calories and promotes fat loss. The intense bursts of activity increase your metabolism which helps to burn more calories both during the workout and even after it.
2. Improves Overall Metabolic Health
Various researches show that HIIT improves your insulin sensitivity and regulates blood sugar levels, making it beneficial for your metabolic health.
In simpler terms, HIIT can help your body use insulin more effectively, which can lower your blood sugar levels and reduce your risk of diabetes.
3. Helps with Weight Loss and Weight Management
HIIT has a combination of calorie burning and muscle activation which helps in weight loss and weight management. It also helps preserve lean muscle mass during periods of calorie restriction.
4. Improves Endurance and Physical Performance
Regularly doing HIIT workouts can enhance overall endurance and athletic performance. It may be beneficial for athletes and professional bodybuilders.
Flexibility and Mobility Workouts
Next on the list of different types of workouts are flexibility and mobility workouts. As the name suggests, these are forms of exercise that focus on improving the range of motion and movement patterns of joints, muscles, and connective tissues.
Doing these exercises regularly can help improve your overall flexibility, improve your posture, reduce the risk of injuries, and maintain your overall health.
A lot of people combine flexibility and mobility workouts with different types of gym workouts to maintain their overall fitness. The main benefits of flexibility and mobility workouts are:
1. Improve Joint Mobility
You can include mobility workouts like wrist circles, ankle circles, and neck rotations in your routine. These focus on moving the joints through their full range of motion to improve flexibility and reduce stiffness
2. Reduces Risk of Injury
Flexibility and mobility exercises enhance the ability of muscles and joints to absorb and distribute forces, reducing the risk of strains, sprains, and other injuries.
3. Improves Posture
Doing flexibility and mobility workouts regularly promotes proper alignment of your body. It can increase the ability to maintain good posture by reducing muscle tightness.
4. Increases Blood Flow
Dynamic movements and stretching in flexibility and mobility workouts help increase blood flow to the muscles. Better blood flow means optimum nutrient delivery throughout the body and better waste removal from the body.
5. Helps with Enhanced Recovery
Incorporating flexibility and mobility work into a post-exercise routine can help in proper recovery. It helps muscle relaxation and reduces muscle soreness as well.
Benefits of Circuit Training
You might have heard a lot about circuit training as one of the many types of workouts, but do you know what it actually is and what are its benefits?
Circuit training is a dynamic and adaptable workout that can be customized to your fitness level and goals. Its unique structure, where you swiftly move from one exercise to the next with minimal rest, challenges your body in new ways and keeps your workout routine exciting.
Here are some of the main benefits of circuit training:
1. Customized As Per Your Fitness Leve
Circuit training is highly adaptable and can be tailored to individual fitness levels and goals. It can be designed for building strength and endurance, for weight loss, for muscle building etc.
2. Supports Cardiovascular Fitness
Circuit training is not as intense as cardio workouts. But the continuous movement in these exercises helps to improve your heart fitness. It increases your heart rate and breathing rates, to support overall heart health
3. Improves Muscle Endurance
Various types of gym workouts can improve muscle endurance, but circuit training is particularly beneficial. It does so by challenging muscles to perform repetitive movements without a prolonged rest period.
4. Promotes Functional Fitness
Many circuit exercises mimic everyday movements, which promote functional fitness. It also enhances the ability to perform daily activities
You can ask your trainer to combine circuit training with other types of workouts to get the best results.
Benefits of Functional Training
Functional training is a type of exercise that focuses on improving the body's ability to perform everyday activities and movements more efficiently.
The main ad goal of this type of training is to enhance functional fitness, including – strength, flexibility, balance, coordination, and endurance.
These are some of the main advantages of functional training:
1. Focuses on Core Stability
One of the main advantages of functional training is that it focuses on strengthening your core muscles. Core muscles play an important role in maintaining stability and balance.
2. Improves Functional Fitness
Functional training improves your ability to perform everyday activities more efficiently and reduces the risk of injury.
3. Increases Strength and Power
If you want to increase your strength and power, you can include functional training along with different types of workouts. It helps build strength, which can be applied to real-life movements.
4. Helps with Better Joint Mobility and Flexibility
Functional training improves dynamic movements, which increase joint flexibility and range of motion.
Benefits of Swimming
Nothing like a cool dip in the pool on a hot summer day. But more than just an activity for relaxing and leisure, swimming is a great cardio workout exercise.
It doesn’t have a heavy impact, making it perfect for those who cannot do heavy workouts yet want to take care of their heart health.
Some of the main benefits of swimming as a type of workout are:
1. Improves Cardiovascular Fitness
Swimming increases your heart rate and supports heart health. It improves circulation and increases the efficiency of your heart and lungs.
2. Enhances Muscle Strength and Endurance
When you swim, you must engage multiple muscle groups, such as the core, arms, legs, and back. It helps to build and tone your muscles and improves overall strength and endurance.
3. Low-Impact Exercise
If you have joint-related issues or arthritis, then you can try swimming. Being in the water reduces the impact on joints. It also minimizes the risk of injuries commonly associated with high-impact exercises.
4. Increases Flexibility
Swimming involves a wide range of arms, legs, and torso motions. Doing it regularly, it promotes flexibility. The resistance of the water also helps improve overall joint flexibility.
5. Helps in Weight Management
Swimming can be an effective calorie-burning activity, which helps in weight loss and management.
6. Improves Respiratory Function
Swimming enhances your lung capacity and respiratory function as you do controlled breathing. For individuals with asthma, controlled breathing can be greatly beneficial.
7. Enhances Posture and Balance
You need proper body alignment for swimming, which can help improve your posture. It also enhances balance and coordination.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that whichever type of workout you choose, it is best to do so under the guidance of an expert. You should also contact your doctor to know if you require any fitness supplements to support different types of gym workouts and get the most out of them.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are different types of workouts for your body?
There are different types of workouts such as aerobics, bone strengthening, muscle strengthening, and flexibility workouts.
2. What are the 5 components of fitness?
The health-related 5 types of physical fitness includes flexibility, cardiorespiratory endurance, body composition, muscular strength, and muscular endurance.
3. What kind of exercise is best as per your body?
There are many best exercises such as weight lifting, swimming, HIIT, and walking etc.
4. What type of supplement to consume prior to your workout?
You can consider taking pre-workout supplements such as creatine to get that instant energy for optimal performance.
5. What types of workouts are there?
Mainly, there are 3 primary types of workout including aerobics, bone strengthening, and muscle strengthening.
