Over the years during my career I have observed that often people choose a wrong combination of exercises to develop their daily workout regime and end up blaming the activity, the instructors or the organisations where they visit regularly for these exercises. 99% of the times this is not the case; it is purely of choosing the wrong combination of exercises. For example: Mrs. X wants to choose exercises in order to loose weight and come back in shape. She decides that she will have a combination of cycling and weight training. After a few months Mrs. X seems to have lost enough weight but she has developed a general stiffness in her body that she doesn’t realise at the moment, after a few more months she tends to develop joint pain. Now I ask you a question that although her weight problems were solved but why did this combination create a new problem for her?

None of the exercises are to blame here, but the combination of these two exercises causes too much muscle strengthening leading to eventually overall body stiffness and joint pain as one of its extreme cases. Mrs. X ideally should have looked at a combination of 2 different exercises in order to try and balance her body’s needs, the body needs the best of both worlds and in her case along with one of these strengthening exercises she should have chosen an exercise which would help her improve her flexibility. Along with her aim of reducing her weight and getting back in shape, this would help her keep up to the needs of her body. Similarly there are several combinations one can choose in order to maintain ones body as well as achieve the overall aim of improving the fitness levels of the body, such as:- Yoga along with weight training, Antigravity with cycling, Yoga with cycling, Antigravity with weight training, Gymnastics with Running/cycling etc.

The list for all combinations is endless but the main motive here is to try and balance out the needs, if we look at all exercises as of today we can divide them into 3 categories: Cardio, Strengthening and Stretching. Each exercise although doesn’t just have one of these elements but it focuses on one of them. Upon further dissection it is clear that each of these elements have a purpose: Cardio aims to help you burn the fat and improves heart function, Strengthening exercises aim to make your muscles stronger in order to make your body stronger as a whole and finally stretching exercises work on improving muscular flexibility, joint mobility, physical and mental stress relief and prevents muscular injuries. In the end in order to make the most out of the wonderful exercise techniques available one should choose wisely and think carefully of the type of benefits it offers in order to create balanced exercise regime.