I have one life hack that would benefit every person. This solution would lead to less pain, more flexibility, better balance, increased happiness, greater health and a stronger body. I think we all know I’m talking about exercise. We’ve all heard it before, exercise is good for you. But what are the best ways to do it and how do you stay motivated to keep doing it? I think it is important to educate yourself on the benefits and best approaches because knowledge is power and I want everyone to feel empowered to get more exercise in their life. 

The benefits not only include the reasons I already listed but also increased bone density, a stronger heart, better mental health, decreased chances of developing chronic illnesses and it can even sharpen our mental capacity. When trying to stay motivated to keep exercise consistent, it is important to remember these benefits. When we focus on weight loss or physique as the only benefit, it makes exercise feel like a short term goal instead of a lifelong journey. 

Now that we have determined the benefits, how do we maximize those and what are the best ways to do it? The best combination is strength, mobility and cardio in order to get all the benefits exercise has to offer and stay injury free. This trio will help us stay flexible, strong, pain free, and keep our heart and lungs healthy. If we are only doing one of these than we are more prone to injury or health issues down the line due to lack of either mobility, muscle capacity or cardiovascular health. Now, don't get me wrong, some exercise is better than no exercise. However, if we want to get the maximum benefits than this is the best combination. 

What are some examples of these types of exercise? Cardio includes anything that gets your heart rate up. The obvious answers are running, jogging, swimming, rowing, and biking. The not so obvious answers are weight lifting, skiing, jumping on a trampoline, playing a sport, et cetera. Strength would be an exercise where we are strengthening our muscles. Weight lifting is the easiest way to do this but you can also do this with body weight exercises or adding resistance by using a resistance band or an exercise machine. Mobility is any type of exercise that is working on stretching the muscles and loosening up the body. This could be yoga, pilates, stretching, or just working through the range of motion in any of your muscles and joints.

Next question, can you combine them into one workout? Yes! This is a great for anyone who wants to get all three but doesn’t want to triple the amount of exercise they are already doing. You can add mobility work into your exercise routine by doing a dynamic warm up the moves the body in several ranges of motion before your workout and stretching well afterwards. You could combine strength and cardio by lifting heavy weights. You also could do pilates or a power yoga class that uses strengthening, gets your heart rate up but also works on flexibility. Another way to do this would be alternating days of the week with strength, cardio and mobility.

I hope this encourages people to take a look at their current exercise routine and ask themselves: Am I getting all three types of exercise? Where an I add in more of one of them? What is holding me back from exercising? Am I missing out on the amazing benefits of exercise? If you need some encouragement or want to get started, the Movement Lab and Focus on Health are here to help!