What Types of Exercises Are a Building Block to the Others?

Depending on whether your workouts consist of aerobic activity or strength training, there are a few fundamental exercises you should master before moving on to other, more advanced movements. It's important to build your aerobic base before you add intensity to those workouts, and when it comes to strength training, exercises that focus on core stability, proper spinal alignment and basic movement patterns are the best place to begin.

  1. Building an Aerobic Base

    • Light aerobic activity is a building block for more intense workouts.

      If your main goal is to improve your cardiovascular fitness, then you'll want to start by building your aerobic base. Walking is a good way to improve aerobic capacity while keeping your risk of injury low. Any aerobic activity can serve as a building block for other exercises, though. All you have to do is start slowly and work at an effort level that allows you to converse in short sentences. As you become more fit, increase the total amount of time you are exercising to 30 minutes or more, and then progress to more intense forms of exercise by adding intervals.

    Building Stability and Mobility

    • The plank is a good core stabilization exercise.

      Before you dive into a strength-training program, it's a good idea to spend some time developing your core stability and your mobility or range of motion at the major joints. Doing this will ensure proper form and spinal loading during all subsequent activities, and can help prevent common exercise injuries. Good exercises for stabilizing the core include supine pelvic tilts, front and side planks, and the bird dog. Exercises that promote range of motion through the major joints include dynamic stretches such as arm circles, trunk twists, toy soldiers and walking lunges.

    Movement Training

    • Body-weight squats are a good compound exercise.

      Movement training involves performing compound exercises that work more than one muscle group, usually by requiring movement at more than one joint. These types of exercises are recommended because they mimic the activities of daily living and are more functional than exercises that only work an isolated muscle. Examples of compound exercises include squats, lunges, pushups, pullups, rows and twisting exercises. As you transition from the stability and mobility phase of your training to the movement phase, you should start by using only your body weight or very light dumbbells or medicine balls when you perform the movement exercises.

    Advanced Exercises

    • Plyometrics and sprint intervals can improve performance.

      When you're ready to kick things up a notch, you can include traditional resistance exercises into your routine, such as leg extensions, leg curls, biceps curls, triceps extensions and crunches. If athletic performance is your goal, then you can also include plyometric exercises such as box jumps and medicine ball throws in your workouts. For explosive speed, a few sprint intervals done near maximal effort can be worked into your aerobic workouts once or twice per week. During this phase, it's important to keep practicing the stability and postural alignment you learned from those building-block exercises in the beginning. Your workouts will be safer and more effective for it.