The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends 150min of moderately intense activity, or 75 min of vigorously intense activity, every week for adults, including seniors (1). These standards came from research sponsored by the CDC and resulted in their 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee Scientific Report. The CDC’s Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, first published in 2008, is now in its 2nd edition. The Guidelines are widely accepted and quoted by the health and fitness community.
Now the question is, what activities should we spend our time on?
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) focuses on three key areas of fitness.
“Research has shown that it’s important to get all three types: aerobic, muscle-strengthening, and balance.” (2)
Harvard Medical School includes flexibility, along with aerobic, strength and balance, as the 4 most important areas of fitness, especially as we grow older. A search of the internet finds broad support for these 4 areas as the most important for overall health and fitness. I will focus on these four areas of fitness to help you enjoy an active lifestyle. Below are additional details about each area. Other articles on the Train4Life.live website cover these topics in more detail.
Endurance: Endurance is the ability to perform a moderately intense activity for a prolonged period. Aerobic or cardiopulmonary exercises like brisk walking, hiking, jogging, swimming or cycling increase your heart rate and breathing. For this form of exercise to improve your endurance your breathing should increase to the point where you can talk but not sing. An occasional and brief increase in speed, during which even speaking is difficult, will accelerate your improvement in endurance. The exercises that increase endurance also reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol as well as some forms of cancer (4).
Strength: Strength is the ability of your muscles to exert a force against a resistance. It is a key area of fitness because it enables you to perform activities such as heavy gardening, house maintenance and carrying suitcases and grocery bags. In other words, it makes daily activities easier. Weight training and other forms of resistance training build strength in muscles and joints, increase bone density and help control body weight. Weight training can also have beneficial effects on heart and lung function and flexibility.
Flexibility: Flexibility is the ability to move around a joint or series of joints in an unrestricted fashion without pain or injury. The limits of your flexibility around a joint or joints is your range of motion. Limited range of motion may be associated with pain. Expanding your range of motion enables your mobility – the ability to perform tasks near the limits of your range of motion. Having a good range of motion helps in daily tasks such as picking up something off the floor, reaching for something on a shelf, playing a sport such as golf or pickleball, climbing stairs or getting up if you fall down. Some people have such a restricted range of motion that getting dressed is a challenge. This limitation can reduce their independence.
Balance: Balance is primarily about one thing – avoiding a fall. According to the Centers for Disease Control “Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among older adults.” While having good balance can save your life, it can also help you stay active in daily activities like carrying a package up stairs or playing pickleball.
If you commit to doing exercises in these 4 areas of fitness, you will be preparing yourself for a more active, healthier and more enjoyable life.
Let’s Get Moving!
- CDC, (2018). Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans
- National Institutes on Aging, (2025) (https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/exercise-and-physical-activity/three-types-exercise-and-physical-activity )
- Harvard Health Publishing, (2023). (https://www.health.harvard.edu/exercise-and-fitness/the-4-most-important-types-of-exercise )
- Jia, N., et al. (2021) The antitumor mechanisms of aerobic exercise: A review of recent preclinical studies. Cancer Med. 13;10(18):6365–6373. doi: 10.1002/cam4.4169