Importance of Regular Exercise and Fitness Routine

Work from home and hybrid working mode has become a new routine these days. The lifestyle is getting more sedentary. Lack of activity leads to numerous health problems. Lifestyle modification is the key to a healthy life. Thus, the nutritious food we choose to eat makes a difference. Regular physical activity is also as important as the food we eat. Exercise is a very crucial part of being healthy.

We often experience that in the beginning, we exercise with immense enthusiasm. However, at later times we tend to lose all motivation and get irregular with our workouts. You can only see results if you are consistent with your workout schedule. An exercise has a few short-term benefits and many long-term benefits. It has an overall effect on your body, mind and emotions. Let’s take a look at how a regular workout plan can help you.

The overall benefits of exercise on the body:

Mental health: The exercise boosts confidence, improves cognition and coordination, keeps the brain active, and improves personal growth.

Physical health: Exercise helps to keep the bones and muscles strong, lose weight, and prevent physical deformity.

Emotional health: Another benefit of regular physical activity is it reduces stress and feelings of depression and enhances your mood and overall well-being. It also helps reduce anxiety and improves sleep.

A] Regular Workout Plan: Types of Exercises

• Cardio:



Cardio exercises should be part of your daily workout routine as they help improve cardiac function and burn fat. Two and a half hours of cardio exercises a week will help you to get desired results. Walking, brisk walking, skipping, swimming, dance workouts, and elliptical are all cardio workouts.

As a beginner, you can start at a slow pace and increase the intensity every week. This will push you to your maximum limit, and you will gain full benefit. Cardio workouts help to lose weight, maintain blood sugars and blood pressure, relieve constipation and improve the body’s circulatory system.

• Functional training:

Functional training is training to improve each day and come out stronger than before. It includes compound exercises. A compound exercise involves more than one muscle in the exercise. For example, a squat involves the core, calf muscles, thighs and lower back. These exercises mimic the way your body moves.

The squat exercise mimics how you bend down to pick up something from the floor. Functional training improves the body’s balance and coordination, increases body awareness and prevents unnecessary injuries. Functional training includes push-ups, squats, forward and lateral lunges, different deadlifts, and the use of a medicine ball.

• Strength training:



You can perform strength training either at home or in the gym. It helps to tone and enhance muscle mass. Strength training helps to increase bone density, increase the body’s metabolism, improves body balancing and reduces falls, and helps arthritis. People of all ages can participate in strength training exercises. However, it has to be performed under professional supervision. You can contact our personal fitness trainer in Mumbai for guidance.

You can perform the exercises with the help of accessories like resistance bands, dumbbells, kettle-bell, barbells, or medicine balls. Always begin with a 5-minute warm-up session to avoid injury while exercising. You can then move on to 10 repetitions of each exercise with a 10-seconds break after every exercise. Keep increasing the reps as you progress with the training.

• Resistance Training:

Resistance training should be part of your everyday exercise routine as it helps improve strength and endurance. To increases muscle strength, you can utilise free weights, machines, and your weight or resistance bands. Resistance training helps to strengthen muscle mass. one needs to perform resistance training at least twice or thrice a week to gain maximum benefit. The body needs rest after intense resistance training for the recovery of muscles, so it is advisable to perform resistance exercises twice a week.

Resistance training improves joint function and increases bone density, muscle, tendon and ligament strength. It also increases flexibility, prevents cognitive decline in older people, and improves posture. It is advisable to start training under the supervision of experts to avoid any injury.

• Yoga and Stretching Exercises:



Integrating yoga and stretching exercises into your daily workout routine helps improve muscle flexibility and body toning. Start your workout with a warm-up followed by stretching. Warm-up exercises help better blood circulation and prevent any injury. Stretching helps to open up the muscles and increase blood flow to the muscles. Try to cover stretching from head to toe. You can perform stretching exercises on the hamstring, piriformis, triceps, hip flexor, neck, hip rotations, side bends, and forward bends.

Yoga improves flexibility, improves mind and body coordination, maintains blood sugars, regulates blood pressure, aids weight loss, improves posture, strengthens bones, and tones muscles and core. Yoga also helps to de-stress.

Yoga and meditation reduce anxiety, improve focus, enhance cognition, lift mood, and keep the mind calm. You can perform yoga under the supervision of experts for maximum benefits and prevent injuries. You can perform yoga daily or thrice a week as per your convenience. Plan your asanas where you cover warm-ups, stretches, standing asanas, sitting asanas and sleeping asanas. End your yoga sessions with a cool-down exercise. It helps to regularise your heartbeats, lower your body temperature and normalise your breathing pattern.

B] How can you schedule your workouts?

Weekly workout schedule:

For overall body improvement, you need to schedule your workouts for maximum benefits and improvement in health.

• Thrice a week– Perform cardio workouts, yoga and stretching exercises which will help to improve the body’s flexibility and metabolism, reduce fat and aid weight loss.
• Twice a week– Perform resistance training and functional training that will help improve your muscle activity. It helps to strengthen your muscles and joints, improves balance, and tones the body.
• Once a week– Perform strength training once a week. It will help to maintain gait, strengthen bones, and improves body’s metabolism.

Keep a day for rest and recovery of the body. The body needs to rest for a day to rejuvenate the muscles, repair any damaged tendon or ligament and recover the muscles from fatigue. The fitness routine should be designed per an individual’s requirements as the workout routine for women and men differs. Since their strength differs, creating a workout routine under a professional’s supervision is best.

C] Benefits of Regular Exercise and Fitness Routine

• Blood circulation:

The warm-up, stretches, and strength training all help maintain the body’s blood circulation. It also helps to improve water retention, swelling and inflammation in the body.

• Weight loss:



Cardio, yoga, and strength training break down fat due to the requirement of fuel for the body. Thus, helping in weight loss. This increases the body’s metabolism, which helps in negative energy balance and aids weight loss.

• Maintains blood sugar level:

One of the top benefits of regular exercise is that it helps reduce insulin. Exercises lower your blood glucose level and boost your body’s sensitivity to insulin, countering insulin resistance and helping you maintain your blood sugar.

• Regulates hormones:

Exercise improves mood, de-stresses the mind, boosts the body’s metabolism, and reduces anxiety and depression. All these factors help to regulate the hormones in the body.

• Strengthens bones:

Functional and strength training, along with yoga and walking are weight-bearing exercises. This means you either use your or any external weight, which helps deposit more calcium in your bones and strengthen them. Apart from working out, having a proper diet and nutrition also helps in strengthening your bones.

• De-stresses the mind and body:

Exercise helps to release happy hormones that enhance the mood, reduce anxiety and depression and balance hormones.

• Keeps the brain active:

Another benefit of regular exercise is that since it involves mind and body coordination, it helps
Improve blood circulation to the brain. It helps keep the brain cells active and prevents any age-related brain cell degeneration.

Regular exercise has an overall positive effect on the mind, body and soul of a person. It keeps your mind sound, body disease-free and emotions in check. But, consistency is the key. Now that you know the importance of exercising regularly, get yourself a fitness trainer now!

Sudam Shelar

Sudam Shelar is a certified fitness expert and health coach, specializing in personalized training and nutritional guidance for optimal well-being. With a keen focus on dynamic workouts, corrective exercises, and tailored programs, he excels in muscle rehabilitation, personal training, and holistic wellness.