Types of Fitness Training

There are many ways you can classify types of fitness training, but for most practical purposes, it's usually easiest to focus on the desired end result. Thus, in this article we'll look at training for muscle building, weight reduction, and enhanced cardiovascular health and performance.

If you're naturally skinny, or just feel like building a little extra strength, this is your thing. Naturally, the key focus here is weight training. However, it's not as easy as just settling on a set routine and adhering to the same workout every week -- you need to keep pushing the body out of its comfort zone in order to make progress.

By using progressively heavier weights, your body adapts to the increased demands being put upon it, which results in stronger, larger muscles. Using the same weights week after week is good for maintenance, but since there's no demand for added strength, there's also not much in terms of progress. On that note, you should also try switching the exercises up between workouts, i.e. do squats one week and then switch to machine leg presses the following week.

For overall health, you should still do some cardiovascular training, of course, but don't do more than necessary. You need a calorie surplus to grow muscles, and doing excess cardio merely depletes your resources that way. Suppose you work out five days a week.

Sample weekly schedule:

• Monday: Weight training - Chest and arms
• Tuesday: 45 minutes treadmill
• Wednesday: Weight training - Back and abs
• Thursday: 45 minutes spinning class
• Friday: Weight training - Legs
• Saturday: Rest
• Sunday: Rest

Those intending to live long, athletes looking to boost performance in another sport, and others with a vested interest in keeping the cardiovascular system in tip-top shape should focus on this type of fitness training. Like the previous type, you must push your body out of its comfort zone to ensure progress.

Some people like jogging; make it interval training by adding a 30 second, all-out sprint every couple minutes. The same principle can be applied to biking, swimming, spinning or whatever else your chosen exercise is.

While everyone benefits from some elements of weight training, most effort should go into the activities where your heart is continuously pounding for a while, preferably in the 70-80% max heart rate range with frequent spikes (interval training) to push the envelope a bit.

Sample weekly schedule:

• Monday: 45 minutes running and sprint drills
• Tuesday: Weight training - Circuit training
• Wednesday: 60 minutes swimming
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday: 45 minutes spinning class
• Saturday: 2 hour fast-paced cross-country hiking
• Sunday: Rest

Note: If you're not currently leading a very active lifestyle, hold off on the more intense interval training until your body has had a chance to adjust.

The goal for this type of training is twosome: burning off calories and hiking the body's metabolism, which in turn burns more calories over time. The cardio outlined earlier does the former, while the muscle building training takes care of the latter (almost as a side effect). This means the exercise portion of a weight reduction strategy is a mix of the two. The other half of that strategy is finding a smart diet, although that goes beyond the scope of this article -- check out our Diet sister site for more information on how to compose your perfect weight-loss eating plan.

Sample weekly schedule:

• Monday: 45 minutes treadmill
• Tuesday: Weight training - Chest, arms and abs
• Wednesday: 60 minutes swimming
• Thursday: Weight training - Back and legs
• Friday: 45 minutes spinning class
• Saturday: Rest
• Sunday: Rest

As you can see, the types of fitness training described above share a lot of common ground. Truth is, practically any activity is good for you; the definitions above are merely how to make it more of a targeted effort. Good luck!

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