What Are the Different Types of Exercise?

If you’re totally new to working out, it can be easy to get confused by some of the terms and technicalities. Which exercises do you need to do and how often? What works which muscle groups? As a newbie, how the heck are you supposed to decipher it all?!

Exercise specialist Ben Kuharik to the rescue. He provides a quick breakdown of the different types of exercise, how they benefit your body and what kind of workout fall under each category.

Types of exercises

There are five main types of exercise:

• Resistance training (which encompasses strength training)
• Cardiovascular exercise, aka “cardio”
• Flexibility training
• Balance exercises
• Sport-specific training

But depending on where you turn for information, you may see these categories broken down differently. For example, the National Institute on Aging lists four main types of exercise: endurance, strength, balance and flexibility.

Kuharik explains that these are just different ways of saying the same thing, and that it’s important to focus on a few overarching types of exercises that provide different benefits to your body.

“Try not to get lost in the jargon,” he urges. “In short, different types of exercise offer different benefits.”

Let’s take a look at some of them.

Resistance training

Resistance training produces tension in your muscles, like by using weights, resistance bands and kettlebells, or doing bodyweight exercises that use your own body to create resistance (for example, push-ups and planks).

“Resistance training can help with things like fall prevention, bone density, mental clarity and overall health and performance,” Kuharik explains. “It also helps you build muscle, improve your muscular endurance and increase your overall strength.”

So, what does resistance training entail? It includes two main types of movement:

• Isotonic exercises are those where you push, pull or lift, including bicep curls, squats, bench presses, push-ups and pull-ups.
• Isometric exercises require you to hold positions that maintain the same muscle length, which causes muscle fatigue. Think planks, wall sits and glute bridges.

Adding resistance makes your muscles work extra hard, which helps you get strong. So, you may also hear talk of strength training, which is resistance training with the specific goal of building maximum muscle strength.

Cardio

Cardio workouts are great for your heart health and overall energy levels. They get your blood pumping harder and faster, which increases your heart rate and how much oxygen your body uses. All of this helps reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

“Cardio is split into two categories: high-intensity intervals and low-intensity, long-duration cardio,” Kuharik says. “Each type has specific benefits, but both are great ways to improve your overall heart health and lower your risk for cardiovascular disease.”

High-intensity interval (HIIT) training

High-intensity interval (HIIT) training is all about short bursts of activity that vary in intensity level — basically, quick spurts of working very hard, followed by a period of less-intense activity.

“HIIT workouts bring added strength benefits and condition your body for big bursts of energy,” Kuharik says. HIIT sessions can include activities like:

• Calisthenics and bodyweight exercises, like lunges, jumping jacks, squat jumps and burpees
• Cycling on a stationary bike
• Running or brisk walking
• Stair climbing

Low-intensity, long-duration cardio

Unlike HIIT exercises, low-intensity, long-duration cardio (also called low-intensity steady-state, or LISS) involves long periods of low-intensity activity, like through:

• Cycling
• Walking and hiking
• Running or jogging
• Rowing
• Swimming
• Cross-country skiing
• Using cardio equipment, like ellipticals and rowing machines

“These activities can help improve your stamina and endurance, like with long-distance walking or laborious jobs like landscaping or warehouse work, where you’re moving all day,” Kuharik notes.

Flexibility training

Flexibility exercises help you avoid muscle tightness, improve your balance and range of motion, and protect your body from injuries.

There are various forms of flexibility exercises, Kuharik says, but the most common is static stretching — when you move a joint as far as you can and hold it for a length of time (usually 30 to 90 seconds).

“Static stretching can help decrease feelings of stiff/muscle tightness,” he explains. “It also can help with sport-specific movements and can improve your mobility, like when it comes to tying your shoes or getting up off of the floor.”

Other forms of stretching include:

• Dynamic stretching
• Active stretching
• Passive stretching

Other types of exercise

There are two other categories of exercise you should know about, too:

• Balance. “Improving your balance can help with fall prevention and is recommended to be incorporated two times a week for people 65 and older,” Kuharik shares. Balance exercises can be included with resistance training or done on their own.
• Sports training. Sport-specific training means focusing on techniques that are relevant to a particular sport. “That said, focusing on strength and cardio in the gym can improve sports performance on its own,” he adds.

It’s also worth noting that you may hear about two categories of exercise —aerobic and anaerobic exercise — which can muddy the waters as you’re getting started.

• Aerobic exercise gets your blood pumping hard and fast. This increases your heart rate and how much oxygen your body uses, which helps reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
• Anaerobic exercises are quick, repetitive and high-intensity activities that don’t require your cells to use oxygen to produce energy.

But Kuharik says you don’t need to spend all that much time thinking about the differences between them, so long as you’re varying your workouts appropriately.

The bottom line on starting to work out

How much exercise you need per week varies based on your age, health and fitness goals, but here’s the general recommended frequency:

• Resistance training. Train every muscle group two times a week or more.
• Cardio. Try to get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week.
• Flexibility exercises. Cool down for at least a few minutes after each workout.

If you’re overwhelmed by all of these recommendations, try to take a step back.

“I tell beginners not to consider things like endurance versus strength versus muscle size,” Kuharik advises. “When you start doing resistance training, you will start to get better at everything else, including strength and endurance.” So, start there.

If you’re only working out two or three times a week, he also suggests doing total-body resistance training workouts that hit on everything. Later, if you start working out more, you can focus on different muscle groups during each workout — say, working your upper body for two days and your lower body for another two days.

But for now, do what you can. And be proud of yourself for doing it at all.

“For beginners, I always go back to the K.I.S.S. acronym: ‘Keep it simple, silly!’” Kuharik encourages. “If you’re doing something, that’s already much, much better than nothing.”