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What are the 5 Types of Fitness?
When focusing on wellness and health goals, there are typically 5 core areas or types of fitness that it’s important to recognise and include in your fitness plan. They each support the body in different ways from cardiovascular support, to muscular health, performance and energy to general body composition.
| Type of Fitness | How this Supports the Body During Exercise | Examples of Exercises |
| Cardiovascular Fitness | How well your heart and lungs work with blood vessels to transport oxygen around your body. Important for muscle performance during exercise. | Running, walking, cycling, swimming, dancing, stair climbing, jogging, HIIT work outs, aerobics. |
| Muscle Strength | The strength your muscles are able to use when performing physical activity. | Weight or band training including squats, deadlifts, bench press and overhead press. |
| Muscle Performance/Endurance | How well your muscles are able to sustain physical activity for periods of time; i.e completing a workout. | Repetitive exercises such as push ups, squats, planks, lunges, burpees, wall sits and light resistance work using bands and weights. |
| Flexibility | The mobility of your muscles and joints as you perform certain exercises or physical movements. | Static stretches, dynamic stretches (such as leg swings, arm circles, and lunges) and exercises such as yoga and pilates. |
| Body Composition | The breakdown of fat, muscle, bone, water in your body and how lean your body mass is. | Squats, deadlifts, push/pull-ups, lunges, planks, HIIT workouts, running, cycling, swimming, and circuit training. |
How can you Improve your Fitness?
You can improve your fitness in various ways by focusing on exercises and lifestyle choices designed to improve and support different areas of the body. Whether you’re focusing on one specific area or focusing on individual areas such as improving your cardio fitness or muscle strength. Below, we’ve discussed how to improve your fitness in a number of areas using both diet and exercise to maximise your results.
What is the Fastest Way to Increase Fitness?
To improve fitness quickly, nutrition and exercise go hand in hand when discussing any improvements to your physical fitness. The fastest way to improve your fitness and see a lasting, sustainable impact is combining regular training with proper nutrition and recovery. Achieving a balance of HIIT sessions, and strength training as well as increasing your overall daily activity with more walking and physical movement will all support your endurance and fitness. Ensuring you fuel your body properly with appropriate nutrients and give your body time to rest in between dedicated work outs is also key to improving fitness long term; helping ensure you can commit to these changes, maintain fitness levels and not damage your body.
Fitness and Nutrition
Nutrition is important for fitness because it not only fuels our bodies with energy for physical activity but supports the body’s ability to repair and recover. Without adequate fuel, in the right quantities your body cannot perform at its best hindering not only physical activity, but recovery, endurance, immunity, hydration and energy. Key nutritional groups to incorporate into your fitness journey are carbohydrates, proteins, healthy fats and vitamins and minerals. Sports supplements while not here to replace a balanced, varied and appropriate diet can help support your fitness journey by bolstering the vitamins your body has in the bank.
How to Improve Cardio Fitness
To improve your cardio fitness consistency is key; focusing on regular aerobic activity such as walking, swimming, dancing. Many of these can be incorporated into your daily routine by ditching the car more and opting to walk or cycle alongside regular HIIT workouts for endurance. Hydration and nutrition also play a big role so focusing on adequate water intake and achieving target amounts of protein, fruit and vegetables are all important to support cardiovascular fitness.
How to Improve Flexibility
To improve your flexibility and support your fitness generally, you need to think about your body and the impact of the exercises you’re doing. Static stretching, dynamic stretching, adequate warm ups and cool downs should be utilised alongside regular exercise to improve the mobility of joints and muscles and prevent damage to the body which may impact your progress.
What is the Best Exercise as you Age?
In general, low impact, high reward exercises are considered the best for people of all ages, particularly in the over 60s. The best exercise for your body as it ages will vary depending on a lot of factors such as current fitness levels, ability, injury and lifestyle. Maintaining a routine with exercises such as:
- brisk walking
- swimming
- yoga
- light resistance training
will have more long term benefits than pushing your body, incurring injuries and preventing you from staying active.
| Age Group | Types of Exercise | Why? |
| Under 18’s | Football, swimming, tennis, cycling, walking to school, dancing, gymnastics etc. | Use mixed activities to focus on strength, cardio and coordination skills. These should be done at least 60 minutes a day with the emphasis on keeping physically fit rather than focusing on one goal i.e weight loss, muscle definition etc. |
| 19 - 25 | HIIT circuits, Yoga, running, swimming and cycling for boosting endurance. | These exercises focus on strength and endurance to support developing cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength and flexibility. |
| 26 - 30 | Strength training such as squats, deadlifts or bench presses. HIIT circuits and cardio such as swimming, running or cycling. Yoga and pilates can be beneficial for those between 26 and 30 to help maintain flexibility of the muscles and joints. | Between 26 and 30 is when most people will reach peak physical condition, it’s for this reason that exercises focusing on muscle performance and strength, joint health and cardiovascular health are recommended. |
| 30 - 40 | HIIT, resistance training and core exercises such as yoga and pilates. | For those between 30 and 40, maintaining health and preserving your fitness levels should be the main focuses as well as maintaining flexibility in the joints and muscles. |
| 40 - 50 | Strength training (squats, lunges, push ups), weight bearing cardio such as hiking, jogging or stair climbing. | Between 40 and 50 your fitness goals should maintain both muscle mass and bone health while also supporting cardiovascular health. Strength training helps prevent muscle loss and focus on muscle strength while weight baring cardio supports bone health and cardiovascular health. |
| 50+ | Aerobic exercises such as cycling, walking, swimming or hiking, strength training such as lunges, rows, and light weight training and exercises that promote mobility like yoga and Pilates. | Exercises for older adults and those 50+ should focus on three core areas; muscle mass, joint health and cardiovascular health. |
Supporting Fitness with Supplements
As we’ve mentioned, nutrition is a key component of an effective fitness routine. While supplements are not intended to replace the protein and vitamins required to fuel your body for fitness, they can help support your diet in achieving your target intake.
| Fitness Goal | Recommended Supplements |
| Energy and Performance | Nitrates Acetyl-L-Carnitine Caffeine |
| Muscle Health and Recovery |
Whey and Protein Powders Creatine BCCAs Glutamine |
| All-round Support |
Vitamin D Magnesium Omega-3 |
At Supplement Hub, we take your health goals seriously working with our internal team of health practitioners to hand-pick effective, science-backed vitamins and supplements. We only stock trusted brands who have passed our rigorous quality assessment, working with exclusive brands such as Vital Nutrients and Supreme Nutrition Products to bring you quality supplements with results you can trust.