All About Fitness

We know that exercise is important, but the type of exercise you do can make all of the difference in getting the results you want. There are three general types of exercise: strength training, cardio training and flexibility training.  In short, cardio training is about improving the ability of your body to deliver oxygen to working muscles; flexibility training is improving the ability of your muscles and joints to move and strength training improves the ability to generate force with your muscles. Strength training is the process of using an external resistance to help the muscles become more effective at producing and using force. When a muscle shortens it generates a force to move the opposing mass. When a muscle lengthens it is slowing down, or decelerating, the movement caused by an opposing force. For example, when standing up from the bottom of a squat the thigh and glute muscles are shortening to generate the force required to move your body up against the downward pull of gravity. On the way back