5 Types of Fitness Training

Flexibility Training

Flexibility training is one of the most important types of fitness training because it provides a foundation for all your other exercise types. Staying flexible can dramatically reduce your risk of injury, improves your range of motion, and works as a great warm up for more strenuous exercise.

Some great examples of this style of training is yoga, which can strengthen and relax your muscles, or Tai Chi, which can reduce stress and improve balance.

Dynamic Strength Training

This style of training simply works on building your muscular strength over a full range of motion. The most common examples of this training style is weightlifting, which this blog has been based on so far, as well as calisthenics, which uses lighter exercises, usually in the form of resistance training, that is designed to promote general fitness and develop muscle tone.

Static Strength Training

Static strength training is defined by contracting or flexing a muscle without any joint movement and is best used to help you maintain muscle strength and tone. There are two types of static strength training, which include submaximal exercises and maximal exercises.

Submaximal – these exercises involve contracting your muscles with less than your maximum strength. An example of this would be to do a half way bicep curl and hold the dumbbell steady.

Maximal – these exercises involve contracting your muscles with all your strength. An example of this would be to use all your strength to push against an immovable object.

Aerobic exercises

Aerobic exercising has previously been talked about on this blog as cardio training. This style of training strengthens the cardiovascular system by increasing your heart rate and breathing. These exercises use large muscle groups to perform rhythmic actions for sustained periods of time.

It is typical to perform this style of exercise for longer than 15 minutes with a maintained heart rate between 60% and 80% of your maximal heart rate. Some examples of this training style include fast walking, jogging, running, stair steppers, elliptical machines, and swimming.

Circuit Training

This style of training is best described as a hybrid of strength training and aerobic exercise. It is most common to perform a series of strength training exercises with little to no rest in between stations or to perform some sort of cardio training between each station to keep your heart rate elevated. You typically perform each station for 30 to 60 seconds and continue the circuit for 30 to 60 minutes and it is a very effective way to mix up your routine.

An example of this style of training could be CrossFit: Workout of the Day (WOD) or even creating your very own circuit routine.