What is Active Fitness?
- Being physically fit and healthy
Getting fit and taking part in physical activities either by yourself or in a group, will help improve your mental and physical health. It can help you make friends and set goals to work towards. It can also give you something enjoyable to do in your spare time.
Physical activity is any sort of movement by the arms and legs which helps burn the energy we get from our food. There are lots of different types of physical activity:
- Walking
- Running
- Swimming
- Cycling
Physical activity can be part of:
- Family activities
- Games
- Sports
- Playing with friends
- Getting to places by walking or cycling
Active Fitness is important as it improves and maintains our health or think of it as ‘Keeping it good or making it even better’.
How much activity should I aim to do?
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It is recommended that Adults from age 19 – 64 (NHS)require 150 minutes of moderate exercise (cycling, cutting the grass or a brisk walk) or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week( football match, running, dancing etc).
Listed below are some of the examples of exercise you may be interested in to help you keep active.
- Jogging/running
- Cycling
- Skipping
- Swimming
- Horse riding
- Dancing
- Rowing
- Baseball
- Basketball
- Football
- Rugby
- Netball
- Pilates
- Yoga
- Chair aerobics
- Walking
Walking is good as it:
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- Helps manage you weight
- Helps lower risk of cancer
- Improves mood and helps with anxiety
- Helps keep bones strong and muscles healthy
- Easy to do anywhere
- Free
Ways/ideas to keep active
- Walk or cycle more. You can do this by walking/cycling to the shop or get off the bus 1 stop early and walk the rest of journey. Get into the habit of using your legs to transport you as much as possible if you can
- Join a club/gym
- Take the stairs instead of the escalator or lift
- Count your steps, you can do this through a smart phone or pedometer. You should aim to have between 7,000 and 10,000 steps per day. You could challenge yourself against friends and make it a competition or try and beat your previous step count each week.
Benefits of being active on a regular basis
- Being active reduces risk of a range of diseases .e.g heart disease, stroke and type two diabetes. Check out this website if you want more information: (https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/exercise-health-benefits/)
- Can strengthen the mind and body.
- Can help maintain a healthy weight .
- Improves our sleep, mood and energy as our brain releases endorphins during exercise.
- Helps maintain the ability to perform everyday tasks – as exercise boosts the area of the brain in charge of verbal memory and learning.
- Improves self-esteem.
- Reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety.
- Most physical activities involve participating in a team, this enhances leadership and empathy skills.
Carrying out exercise helps the body physically, It helps :
- Heart, veins and arteries – The heart is a muscle and exercise helps it become stronger and more efficient in keeping our veins and arteries clear and decreases the level of harm.
- Blood and sugar levels – when we exercise the glucose in our bloodstream is used by out muscles which make it less likely that sugar will build up in the blood.
- Lungs- working out increases lung capacity so that our lungs can draw more oxygen into our bodies while releasing more carbon dioxide
- Weight control – regular exercise helps us remain fit and controls our weight