Outline Your Fitness Plan
Your exercise program should include something from each of four basic areas, and each day should begin with a warmup and end with a cooldown. Space your workouts throughout the week and try not to put in consecutive days of hard exercise.
Warmup: Five to ten minutes of low-intensity exercise such as walking or general movement to get the muscles warmed up and elastic.
Muscular strength: Two 20-minute sessions per week of weight training is the minimum for increasing strength.
Muscular endurance: Three 30-minute sessions per week with such exercises as calisthenics, pushups, situps, pull-ups and weight training for all the major muscle groups.
Cardiorespiratory endurance: At least three 20-minute sessions of continuous aerobic, rhythmic exercise each week, such as brisk walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, jumping rope, rowing, cross-country skiing, etc.
Flexibility: Ten to fifteen minutes of slow, non-bouncing daily stretching exercises can be included in your warmup and/or cooldown.
Cooldown: Five to eleven minutes of low-intensity exercise to cool your muscles down slowly to avoid injury.