Most people can recall a time where they’ve found themselves persistently wanting to be more active, whether it’s for maintaining a certain physique, to be healthier, more flexible, or to avoid diseases. Believe it or not, all exercises fall into four basic categories, those being endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility.

A lot of people are misinformed that they could just do one exercise and it will fulfill all their physical and health concerns, but that is not the case. For example, weight training such as bicep curls can help build strength but it won’t help you with endurance for that 5k mile run you planned on conquering.

If you mix all four categories it is known to help reduce boredom of working out and prevent you from the risk of injuries due to the repetitive exercises that were hurting that same muscle group you kept working out everyday. Endurance, also known as aerobic, exercises increase heart rate. This exercise is important for many body functions like your heart and lungs. If you find yourself walking incline and catch yourself out of breath in a matter of 30 seconds to a few minutes this a sign that you need to do more aerobics to help the lungs and heart. This also helps to get the blood flowing through your body. Popular aerobics exercises are fast walking, running, swimming, jump rope, cycling, dancing, and much more.

Strength training not only helps with muscle growth but also stimulate bone growth, lowers blood sugar, assists with weight control, improve balance and posture. Many people believe they’ll only find the most effective weight loss exercises in aerobics but strength training has been found to be very efficient for those on a weight loss journey.

“If you want to build muscle mass effectively then you need to be willing to adding on resistance eventually if it’s from picking up a heavier dumbbell, band, or weight machine,” Paul Rodriguez, In-shape trainer, said.

Some strength exercises include squats, push-ups, deadlifts, lunges and other exercises involving resistance.

Flexibility can be enhanced through stretching. The benefits of stretching and doing so are often taken for granted by a lot of younger people because it is already there for most but as people age with time flexibility is lost in the muscles and tendons. Not stretching can leave the muscles and tendons not functioning efficiently like they once did. Stretching can lessen the risk for muscle cramps, muscle damage, strains, joint pain, and falling. Stretches should be done before working out to endure more and warm up as well as doing so after your workout to have a faster and easier muscle recovery the following day. If you’re goal is to do the splits as a beginner, it’s not likely to be achieved the first time it is attempted. Flexibility is grown within time and consistency so it’s never good to stretch till you hit a painful state while stretching.

Balance exercises can help with being more steady at your feet and preventing falling. As people age, balance will help in the long run with vision, hearing, as well as leg muscles and joints. Balance training is very effective for those who have injured their ankles. For example, with ankle sprains, it is important to get the ankle to re-adapt to mobility and by practicing balance it can be restored. A common and typical balance technique is keeping your hands on your hips while standing on one leg. While it may not concern the youth, if you care about your health and well-being in the long-run it’s never too early to practice balance training. One of the pros that comes from this exercise unlike the other categories is balance can be practiced whenever and wherever you please and you don’t need any special equipment.