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Exercise, Sports, and Quality of Life
by Enzo Salvador and Milo Sevilla

With the recent turn of events due to the pandemic, people have realized that taking care of their health should be one of their top priorities apart from being successful in life. There are many ways to take care of one’s self and improve their quality of life, one of these is becoming more physically active. There are many types of exercises and sports that can cater to your abilities; all of which offer various health benefits that directly affect one’s quality of life. To identify how exercising and playing sports benefit you, and gain more insights in this topic. 

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While it is common knowledge that exercise allows you to manage your weight and strengthen your muscles, it also offers benefits related to aging, cognitive processes, mental health, and even sleeping. Before discussing its benefits, it is also important to know what exercise is and its different types. Generally, exercise is defined as any activity that requires physical effort and increases the heart rate. Often, people correlate exercising with going to the gym, but even daily chores can be considered exercise because we exert physical effort into doing them. There are different types of exercise: aerobic exercise, strength training or cardiovascular exercise, balance and stability training, coordination and agility training, and flexibility and mobility training. 

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Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic Exercise is any physical activity you do that you do for more than a few minutes. Exercises such as swimming, cycling, hiking, dancing, rowing, etc. are types of aerobic exercises. 

 

When you're doing this type of exercise, your body uses your aerobic energy system for power. As a result, aerobic exercises that feel hard for you to do will become easier overtime. One thing to remember is that, it doesn’t matter all that much you do, as long as you do it regularly with consistency. 

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each week.

 

Strength Training

Strength Training from the word itself is to improve the strength and comfortability of any exercise that you do. To understand this better, let’s say you wanted to improve the number of push-ups you can do. To improve this, you started doing stretch exercises on your upper body, specifically your arm joints for full flexibility, as well as, doing push-up repetitions until failure every day. As a result, you can now do 10-12 more push-ups than your previous push-up record. 

 

Strength Training may enhance your quality of life and improve your ability to do everyday activities. Strength training can also protect your joints from injury. Building muscle can also contribute to better balance and may reduce your risk of falls. This can help you maintain independence as you age (MayoClinic, 2023).

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Balance and Stability Training

Balance and Stability Training can maintain and stabilize your body nutrition and physical health. Here are the exercises from the Queensland Government that may help you to improve stability and balance. 

 

1. Squat floor reach - 10-15 repetitions

2. Chair leg squats - 10-15 repetitions

3. Squat reach and jump - 10-15 repetitions

4. Fast step ups - 60-90 seconds

5. Step up knee lifts - 15-20 repetitions each leg

6. Lunge with bicep curl - 20-30 repetitions each leg

7. Side lunges - 10-15 repetitions each leg

8. Rows - 10-15 repetitions

9. Press and Plank - 10-15 repetitions each side

10. Russian Twist - 10-15 repetitions each side

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If you think they are hard for you, decrease the amount of repetitions per exercise.

 

This will achieve many benefits such as reduced risk of injury, improving your ability to undertake other types of exercise and daily activity, and helping to maintain your independence as you age.

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Agility Training

Agility is defined as the ability to move at an accelerated pace in one direction and then instantly decelerate and shift position in a matter of seconds (Quinn, 2022).

 

Agility training exercises help improve speed , explosive power, coordination, and specific sports skills. This type of training is mostly used in sports that include running. Here are some of the exercises for agility training:

 

1. Plyometric hurdles

2. Speed ladder drills

3. Box Jumps

4. Lateral Jumps

5. Tuck Jumps

6. Dot drills

 

Trying 2-3 of these exercises can improve your agility. To know more about them, visit: Best Agility exercises for Athletes.

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Flexibility and Mobility Training

Flexibility is a key component to preventing injury. Stretching before athletic activity helps prepare the muscles for exercise. Stretching after exercise has proven to be even more important for preventing injury (OrthoInfo, 2021).

 

Flexibility training and stretching improves your flexibility. There are many way to test your flexibility but it is also important to be cautious on your flexibility limit to avoid permanent injuries on your joints and muscles. The more flexible you are, you can do things with your body that most people cannot do.

 

For every stretching exercise, it is important to warm up first. Good examples of warm up activities are slowly running in place or walking briskly for a few minutes. 

 

Here are some of the exercises that you can do to improve your flexibility:

 

1. Forward Lunges

2. Side Lunges

3. Cross-Over

4. Standing Quad Stretch

5. Seat Straddle Lotus

6. Seat Side Straddle

7. Seat Stretch

8. Knees to Chest

 

To know more about them, visit: Flexibility Exercises for Young Athletes.

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Much like exercise, sport is often defined as any activity that requires physical effort though oftentimes done through casual or organized participation in a specific field. In this article, sports are classified into three parts: physical sports, mind sports, and electronic sports. All of which grants us great benefits.
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Physical Sports

Physical sports are sports that require its player to be moving physically. Sports such as basketball, volleyball, and badminton require the player to have good reflexes and move from one side to another. Physical sports can also be track and field, swimming,  and cycling.

 

As long as you are exerting physical effort, you are both exercising and participating in sports because sports is just a subset of exercise.

 

Physical sports often have the same benefits as any other exercise because both require physical effort. Some of its benefits include strengthening your muscles and bones; helps you reduce your body fat and control your body weight; improve your coordination, balance, flexibility, stamina, and concentration.

 

Mind Sports

Mind sports often require you to exert mental energy rather than physical. Mind sports require little to no physical effort because rather than your reflexes, you are required to think.

These often involve board games such as chess, scrabble, and sudoku. With mind sports, you are encouraged to think out of the box and come up with solutions at a limited time. Therefore, one of its biggest benefits is enhancing critical thinking skills.

 

Electronic Sports

Electronic sports or Esports occur through the digital world. The players compete in video games where most of the time team coordination and cooperation are required. Though esports is not as traditional as the aforementioned, it has been around for quite some time and has gained more popularity throughout the years. Just like mind sports, Esports do not necessarily require much physical effort and lean on the players' critical thinking.

 

Esports can benefit its players because it promotes critical thinking, attention, and hand-eye coordination. Though it does not directly affect your physical well-being, it may help with your mental well-being as esports often act as a bridge for more people to come together.

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