Yoga, Gym, Aerobics, Swimming - What is the best training for you

We humans have a tendency of praising ourselves, the things we own, and the activities we do. Thus, many professional yoga/gym/aerobics/swimming/whatever instructors or devoted longtime practitioners claim that their chosen activity is the best because of “blah, blah, blah” and other activities are not (so) good because of “blah, blah, blah”. For example, people who practice yoga usually dislike gyms and people who go to a gym usually dislike yoga.

Here is a simple but often disregarded truth: unless you want to be a professional in a certain sport/activity or you have a specific health issue that makes some sports/activities especially beneficial or dangerous for you, by far the best thing to do is to completely change your recreational activities every couple of months or years. Why?

Yoga will make you flexible, stable, grounded, calm, and relaxed like no other mentioned activity will. But you can practice it for 10 years and still be unable to run 50 meters without losing your breath, lift anything remotely heavy, or get in a water without dying. Isn’t it a bit shortsighted and imbalanced to achieve extreme flexibility while having such shortcomings?

Gym can make your muscles big and pretty, it can make you strong and confident, it can allow you to eat more without getting fat due to the increased basic calorie needs of your body. But that again, isn’t is shameful to look extremely fit and fail to run, jump, move, hold a position?

Aerobics strengthen your heart and lungs, boost your stamina, and allow you to burn more calories per hour than anything else mentioned, but it won’t build your muscles, it won’t allow you to burn a lot of calories even if you stop practicing it, it won’t make you really flexible, it won’t make you very grounded. You won’t have many chances to jump/run for hours in everyday life, so, isn’t it better to be able to jump/run for 30 minutes but also have a nice body shape and be more relaxed?

Swimming is great for your cardiovascular system, for your posture, for stress relief, and efficiently builds your all-round stamina. However, it doesn’t help much with flexibility, it doesn’t build your muscles (professional swimmers and water polo players have large muscles because they need them so they lift weights a lot, they haven’t built those muscles by swimming), and it doesn’t make you as agile as aerobics. Again, why put an exclusive focus on swimming and miss the other benefits and abilities?

To conclude: go to a gym, take yoga classes, do aerobics, go swimming, play sports, dance… Make your trainings as varied as possible, change or mix activities every couple of months or years, and enjoy a fit and healthy life!

Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4.