Men's Fitness

In order to keep healthy, it's important for any person to include cardio exercise and resistance training - or lifting weights. Men and women both benefit from including cardio exercise and lifting weights at part of their fitness program. However, many women believe that if they lift weights they'll get too bulky. Though this isn't true, it is perhaps the main reason you see more women on cardio machines or walking outside and more men using weights as part of their exercise routine.

Getting cardio exercise means making your heart and cardiovascular system work harder to get oxygen throughout the rest of your body. You can see if you are getting aerobic exercise by measuring your heart rate during an activity. To be an aerobic activity you'll want your heart rate to be at 70-80% of your target heart rate. To find your target heart rate, just subtract your age from 220 for men and 226 for women.

For example a 30 year old man would who is active in getting cardio exercise would want to keep his heart rate at 75% of 190 or about 143 beats per minute. You'll want to keep doing your aerobic exercise for a minimum of 20 minutes on top of a five minute warm up and five minute cool down.

The benefits of this type exercise are numerous. You'll help you keep your heart stronger, fight off heart disease, reduce cholesterol, control or prevent diabetes, lose weight, fight off viral illnesses, and more.

Types of aerobic exercises you can do include jogging, biking, swimming, or any number of cardio machines at your gym.

Resistance training is also key to men's fitness. Lifting weights is more intense than cardio exercise but takes place in shorter spurts with rests in between. This will help build muscle in men and women. But men are able to build more muscle than women and that's why men get bigger while women tend to look sleeker and toned.

Building muscle is important part of men's fitness because having some muscle means your body will burn more fat naturally and keep you healthier. This doesn't mean you have to be a body builder or look like one. Just adding a few pounds of lean muscle mass can make a difference.

Adding some muscle through lifting weights can also help strengthen your bones and ligaments, help reduce your blood sugar and help improve athletic performance.

There are numerous weight training regimens out there on the Internet to help get you started. You can also meet with a personal trainer at your local gym to determine the best weight routine for you based on your body type and your fitness goals.