Exercise types: What is aerobic activity, strength/resistance training, impact exercise, and balance exercise?

Moderate intensity physical activity or moderate aerobic exercise means you’re working hard enough to raise your heart rate. Examples could include walking at an increased pace, water aerobics, riding a bike on level ground, playing doubles tennis or pickleball, or general yard work. Vigorous physical activity or vigorous aerobic exercise means you’re breathing hard and fast, and your heart rate has gone up even further. Examples could include heavy yard work, swimming laps, riding a bike fast or on hills, or playing basketball.

 Examples of resistance training can include free weights like barbells, dumbbells, or medicine balls. Resistance training can also be machines that have weights or pressurized air where movements like leg press, knee straightening, knee bending, or separating apart and bringing your knees together are done against a load. Elastic bands are also a form of resistance training, but the resistance of these bands may not be high enough to make a meaningful impact on bone density. Exercises could be deadlifts, squats, overhead presses, rowing, or lat-pull down.

 Impact exercises are things that cause additional load to be placed on your bones. This could include things like stair climbing, jogging, jumping, or jumping rope. There is a lot of overlap in these types of exercise, as aerobic exercises like pickleball or tennis could also include impact activities of jumping or jogging.

 Balance exercises can be things like transferring weight from one body part to another, reducing base of support, reducing reliance on support objects, reactive games or responding to things that destabilize you, or participating in dynamic movements in three dimensions that incorporate weight shifting and changes in base of support, like Tai Chi.