Physical exercise is activity performed in order to develop or maintain physical fitness and overall health . Frequent and regular exercise is an important componenet in the prevention of some of the diseases of affluence such as cancer , heart disease , diabetes and obesity .

Exercises are generally grouped into three types depending on the overall effect they have on the human body:

• Flexibility exercises such as stretching improve the range of motion of muscles and joints.
• Aerobic exercises such as walking and running focus on increasing cardiovascular endurance.
• Anaerobic exercises such as weightlifting increase short-term muscle strength.

Exercise can be an important part of physical therapy , weight loss or sports performance.

Exercise can be fun , but be sure to do what you like and eat enough calories , so when you do exercise you are building up muscles , not breaking them down for fuel. Carbohydrates are muscle-sparing; and if you don't get enough calories overall, you burn muscles up with the fat to make up the deficit.

Exercise benefits

Frequent and regular exercise has been shown to help prevent or to improve major illnesses such as high blood pressure , obesity , heart disease , diabetes , insomnia , cancer and depression , among others.

Types of physical exercise

• aerobics
• calisthenics
• cycling
• dancing
• rowing
• running
• sport
• stretching
• walking
• warming up
• weight training
• yoga

Breathing

Active exhalation during physical exercise helps the body to increase its maximum lung capacity, and oxygen uptake. This results in greater cardiac efficiency, since the heart has to do less work to oxygenate the muscles, and there is also increased muscular efficiency through greater blood flow. Consciously breathing deeply during aerobic exercise helps this development of the heart lung efficiency.

Players of wind instruments tend to have well developed breathing muscles, because of frequent practice of breathing deeply and retaining the breath for extended periods when playing. Indeed, taking up a wind instrument such as a trumpet or oboe has been known to dramaticalluy improve the condition of people with breathing problems such as asthma .

During breathing, males mostly use the intercostal muscles in the rib cage, females mostly use abdominal muscles. In strenuous exercise, it is likely that these differences diminish.