Types of Fitness Training
Women should include several types of fitness training into their workouts for a well-rounded, solid fitness routine.
There are several major types of fitness training that include:
- Flexibility Training
- Dynamic Strength Training
- Static Strength Training
- Aerobic Training
- Circuit Training
I will cover these briefly here so you can have a basic understanding of what they are and how you can use them to reach your fitness goals.
Flexibility Training
This is one of the most important of all of your exercises because it is what will keep your risk of injury down as well as allow you to perform other exercise movements with a wider range of motion and with more efficiency.
Being or becoming flexible is like a foundation to all of the other exercises you will do and can also serve as a great warm up. Never start a workout without first warming up and including stretching.
Stretching has other benefits such as improving your posture, alignment, breathing and range of motion and keeping a healthy blood flow into some of those joints, tendons and ligaments that can get tight.
I will give you a list along with demonstrations for many different types of stretches as well as go over the basics of yoga and tai chi, who disciplines that have a wide array of fitness training benefits.
Dynamic Strength Training
Dynamic Strength Training is basically anaerobic exercise, which means that it doesn't take a lot of cardiovascular power to perform these exercises.
Without getting too technical, you are using muscle power for short-times movements such as when lifting weights or doing calisthenics. This type of movement in exercises is also known as isotonic exercise. Moving a weight through a motion, such as in a bench press, strengthens the muscles through the entire movement.
Static Strength Training
This type of exercise involves using resistance and contracting muscle without moving the joints such as holding out a dumbell or holding yourself in a plank position. Your muscles are working without moving through a range of motion like in dynamic strength training.
This type of movement is also known as isometric exercise.
Aerobic Training
Aerobic training means 'using oxygen' and is also referred to as cardiovascular exercise or 'cardio' and these include exercises that increase your heart rate and breathing rate such as running, cycling, dancing or swimming.
Basically in cardio, you are using your largest sets of muscle groups to perform some type of rythmic motion for an sustained period of time, most of the time at the very least 15 minutes and all the way up to several hours, as in the case of a marathon.
You typically want to get your heart rate up to 60-80% of your maximum heart rate and keep it here for the length of your session.
Circuit Training
Circuit Training involves exercise that uses both strength training with aerobic exercise. In a gym, there are usually weight machines in an area and you do a set number of repetitions at the station then jog in place or do some type of aerobic exercise in between the stations to keep your heart rate elevated.
In this type of workout you get the benefits of strength training and cardio in one session.
