“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

In such testing times during a global pandemic when the world is at a standstill and confined to their homes, the one thing that people have forgotten about is fitness. The constant work from home and sitting around on the desk is contributing to weight gain and possibly the heightened risks of chronic diseases.

Kashvi Gupta has penned down her thoughts on the significance of exercises and why we need to change our lifestyle today without any further questions.

Not just Kashvi, even the Youth Empowerment Forum (YEF) from Arizona, which is managed by the youth believes in the same. The forum is founded under the Women Empowerment Foundation (WEF) headed by Mrs. Lalitha Byra, Phoenix City Women Commissioner. YEF has time and time arranged several online sessions and workshops eliciting the importance of fitness and a healthier lifestyle. If you are interested in knowing more on this, we would advise you glance through the insightful article written by Kashvi.

Have you ever thought about why people say that exercising is important? One day, I was sitting on the couch and watching some TV. My parents came over and said, “Instead of sitting on the couch and being a couch potato, why don’t you exercise for some time.” When they said this, I was staring at their face. I was wondering about why my parents were saying this. Telling a kid to exercise was a very common phrase I heard adults say. I was wondering: What is so special about exercising that makes all grown-ups tell their kids to do it? Today, I am going to talk about what exercise is, the types of exercises and the benefits to them, and why exercise is important for us right now.

Exercise is a type of body activity that maintains physical fitness and overall health and fitness. “It involves engaging in physical activity and increasing the heart rate beyond resting levels. It is an important part of preserving physical and mental health.” Regular exercise provides a lot of benefits to the body and mind; even if it is just walking or exercises that are high intensity. Any type of exercise can help become more immune to diseases and health issues. “Exercise is a physical activity that is planned, structured, and repetitive for conditioning any part of the body used to improve health and maintain fitness.” After exercising, you can generally become sweaty like a student trying to cheat when the teacher is looking, increase your heart rate like a kid wondering what to do when his parents heard that he broke something, and breathe heavily like a climber climbing up Mount Everest.

There are many different types of exercises with many benefits to them. 3 main types of exercises are aerobic exercise, anaerobic exercise, and agility training. “Aerobic exercise aims to improve how the body uses oxygen. Most aerobic exercise takes place at average levels of intensity over longer periods.” Some benefits of aerobic exercise are improved muscle strength of your whole body, lowered blood pressure, improved circulatory system, increased number of red blood cells for more oxygen, reduced risk of cardiovascular diseases, etc. Another type of exercise is anaerobic exercise. “Anaerobic exercise does not use oxygen for energy. People use this type of exercise to build power, strength, and muscle mass.” Few types of anaerobic exercises are weightlifting, sprinting, fast skipping with a rope, or any type of intense activity. Anaerobic exercise can build more muscle mass and improve strength. Last, but not least, agility training. “Agility training aims to improve a person’s ability to maintain control while speeding up, slowing down, and changing direction.” Agility training is usually used for people who take sports that are mostly focused on position, coordination, speed, and balance. Some examples of agility training sports are tennis, soccer, wrestling, basketball, etc. All of this goes to show that there are different types of exercises. If you don’t like one, choose another one. For example, when I finally got off the couch, I didn’t feel like to do agility training or anaerobic exercises, so I did some aerobic exercises. My body felt much more open and I felt better.

Today, exercising is more important than anytime so far. Because of this pandemic, people feel like they have nothing to do. They are just sitting on the couch being a couch potato just like me and are stuffing foods in their faces. This may sound like fun, but it is very unhealthy. “The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends 150-300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity and 2 sessions per week of muscle strength training. Fit in 2, 5, 10, or 20 minutes, however, and wherever you can. Every active minute counts!” People who are being lazy should start exercising for at least 30 minutes every day each week. If you don’t want to exercise, you should at least walk for 30 minutes because as the saying goes, “Walking is man’s best medicine.”

Today, I talked about what exercise is, the different types of exercise and benefits to it, and why exercise is important for us now than ever. Out of all this, you should have learned that exercise is pretty good for you. It has many health and physical benefits to it, but keep in mind, exercising is good for you, especially now. Grown-ups tell you to exercise because they are worried about you. They just want you to be safe. This might not be believable, but exercise can get you close to your family members. So, come on, exercise. The more you exercise, the more healthy you will be which will reduce the risk of getting infected. This will help in reducing cases and COVID-19 will get over much faster and you will be able to go out and do all the things you live. So, come on, EXERCISE!

SOURCES

Felman, Adam. “Exercise: Health Benefits, Types, and How It Works.” Medical News Today,

MediLexicon International, 2019, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/153390.

Zeblisky, Peter. What Is Exercise?, 2020, www.martinhealth.org/what-is-exercise.
(exerciseismedicine.org)

By- Kashvi Gupta She is an incoming freshman at Mountain Ridge High School in Phoenix. She is a regular volunteer at Indo American Cultural & Religious Foundation events. She is learning to improve her writing and blogging skills and is coached by Youth