Emma Radebaugh Everyone knows it’s important to stay active and healthy in their everyday lives. While the role of physical activity depends on each person’s lifestyle differently, there are some activities that everyone should consider to be a well-rounded athlete. Below are some of the best sports for overall fitness to include into your daily exercise plan.
Swimming
Swimming is one of the most primitive fitness activities still around today. All it takes is jumping into the water and moving around. Still, Olympic swimming or indoor swimming is a great full-body workout that burns a lot of calories. Depending on how intense you go, it can be a great low-stress activity to help calm you down or it can be a serious cardiovascular activity to help increase your lung capacity and muscle endurance. More so, indoor pools are open all year-round, so there are no seasonal restrictions involved.
Running
Similarly, running is an activity that most people can do, no matter their age. Running—whether it’s inside or outside—helps build bone density and strengthens muscles. Also, it releases endorphins that support mental and physiological health. These endorphins lower the runner’s levels of anxiety or depression and increase serotonin and dopamine.
Gymnastics
Another full-body workout to know of is gymnastics. This sport can be a little intimidating for beginners, but all it takes to become better is balance and coordination to tumble, leap, and jump around. This naturally requires a strong physical frame and mental focus to avoid mistakes. While gymnastics provides physical and mental benefits, it also supports social benefits. Although gymnastics is typically an individual sport, there are still teams involved to support each other throughout the competition.
Cycling
While most of the sports on this list are full-body activities, cycling requires just as much physical and mental determination just with the addition of a bicycle. There are a whole host of reasons you should turn to cycling for physical fitness. Cycling builds a lot of muscle strength and endurance throughout the whole body, especially the legs. Not to mention, cycling for hundreds of miles burns thousands of calories. This means that determined cyclists must eat a lot of healthy foods, like complex carbohydrates and lean proteins, to energize their bodies. Mentally, cycling reduces depression and helps you stay focused on long-term fitness goals. You can gradually increase your mileage each trip; from this, you can continue this perseverance into your everyday life as well.
Triathlons
One of the best aspects of triathlons is that it incorporates a lot of the activities already mentioned, specifically swimming, cycling, and running. Triathlons are among the most fit sports around, since they incorporate all the physical and mental benefits of these three top fitness activities. Triathletes must be truly conditioned to compete in these fitness competitions.
