Exercise is today one of the most important factor in determining a person's overall health including mental, physical, emotional and most importantly spiritual. In today's world where most of the jobs are sedentary and required little to no full body activity, exercise has become a necessity and a chore instead of a normal part of a person's daily life. So what is a person to do?

We need at least 30 minutes of exercise in different forms every day and depending on your goals and occupation, you many need more than that. This exercise may include running, jogging, walking, biking, lifting weights or other aerobic activities such as swimming. So how exactly should one work out?

Rule number one - take it slowly. Many people, when made aware of the extreme health risks of an inactive lifestyle over-exercise and end up with innumerable aches and cramps and even severe problems such as heart failure and stroke. Take it easy on your body and rest at least a day between heavy bouts of resistance training (such as weight lifting). Try to get into some light aerobic exercise for the beginning parts of your work out if you want to work on your overall body health (including cardiovascular fitness and fat percentage in the body) for a few days. Lower body aerobic exercises consume more oxygen than upper body aerobic exercises. So try running over rowing and so on.

On the other hand, you absolutely NEED some form of resistance training if you want to avoid muscular atrophy and problems related to bones (such as osteoporosis) and circulation (such as multiple sclerosis). Resistance training also helps one's breathing and oxygen consumption efficiency, although not to the same extent as the aerobic workouts. Resistant training includes lifting weights in various synchronized motions to contract specific muscle groups. In general, the greater the size and number of muscle groups affected, the better the work out is. So bench press, dead-lifts and squats would be considered better exercises that bicep curls or triceps extensions. For those of us who cannot spare enough time or money to go to a good gym, there's good news - You don't need one! Just a couple of dumbbells that weigh, let's say 5 to 10 pounds each can do wonders for you exercise routine. Combine various workouts with these weights with body-weight exercises such as push-ups, bicycle crunches, pull-ups and others and you've got one big workout on your hands. Most people underestimate the value of body weight exercises and focus too much on lifting weights alone. Most full body exercises require a much greater synchronization of a large number of muscle groups that many people ever realize. These workouts alternated with running or jogging are capable of taking care of most, if not all of your exercise needs.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Exercise.