Exercise to Develop Strength, Endurance and Flexibility

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Welcome to class! 

In today’s class, we will be talking about exercise to develop strength, endurance and flexibility. Enjoy the class!

Exercise to Develop Strength, Endurance and Flexibility

Aerobic exercise like biking, jogging, and swimming enhances cardio-respiratory endurance, and performance can be measured for speed, duration and distance. Building endurance promotes higher energy levels. Aerobic exercise also burns calories and fat to keep your weight under control.

1. Strength development: Pull up, press up, knee bend, sit up, weight training.
2. Endurance development: Circuit training (running on the spot squat thrust press up Harvard step up treadmill windmill squat jump sit up).
3. Flexibility development: Windmill, duck walk, hurdle stretch, bending from the trunk, bending the neck sideways, bending forward and backwards, trunk flexion standing, trunk extension.

There are 2 categories of endurance:

1. Cardio-respiratory endurance
2. Muscular endurance

• Cardio-respiratory Endurance:

Cardio-respiratory endurance is the prolonged ability of your heart and lungs to supply muscles with nutrients and oxygen. Aerobic exercise like biking, jogging, and swimming enhances cardio-respiratory endurance, and performance can be measured for speed, duration and distance.

• Muscular Endurance:

The second type of endurance one must develop to be physically fit is Muscular Endurance. Muscular Endurance is defined as the ability of your muscles to perform contractions for long periods. The number of curl-ups one can perform, for example, is a measure of abdominal endurance.

Improving muscular endurance

Generally, the performance of resistance exercises enhances the endurance of the muscles involved. The muscular endurance phase of a general fitness exercise prescription may include the performance of a circuit routine consisting of multiple exercises targeting different muscle groups.

• Strength:

Muscular Strength is another measure of fitness, and is categorized into 2 types:

1. Static Strength: How much weight you can hold in place.
2. Dynamic Strength: How much weight you can move. It is desirable to be strong to perform heavy work with less chance for injury. Maintaining strength is more difficult with age and the increasing loss of lean weight.

Increasing strength

Strength can be increased through static contractions, as in isometric exercise, or by low repetition isotonic exercises. For a beginner, one set of 12 repetitions done with high intensity will work well. For more advanced trainees, three sets of an exercise in a 7-12 rep range, will initiate optimal strength gains, when performed 2-3 times a week.

• Flexibility:

The final measure of fitness is Flexibility. Flexibility is defined as the ability to move muscles and joints through their full range of motion. One way to measure flexibility is to see how close one comes to touching the toes with legs straight.

The flexibility of muscles and joints will help prevent injury and maintain mobility with ageing. Of particular concern, is flexibility in the posterior thigh and low back. Lack of flexibility in these areas increases the risk of chronic low back pain.

Increasing flexibility

Stretching will increase flexibility. It is important that stretching is done slowly with gradual increases in the range of motion. The stretch should be sustained from 10 to 30 seconds, and should not cause pain. Stretching exercises need to be performed at least 3 times a week. It is safer to stretch muscles that are already warm.

Stretching is best performed after the aerobic phase or between sets of resistance exercises performed in both the muscular endurance and strength phases of the general fitness exercise prescription.

 

In our next class, we will be talking about Safety Precaution When Performing an Exercise.  We hope you enjoyed the class.

Should you have any further question, feel free to ask in the comment section below and trust us to respond as soon as possible.

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