Walk, Run, Cycle, Swim: Which is Best to Improve Fitness?

When building up your fitness, it’s worth looking at different forms of exercise to see which is right for your needs. Of walking, running, cycling, and swimming, which represents the best way to improve your fitness? Depending on what kind of results you want to see, each have their own merits, and can be combined if you want to get an excellent all round workout. At the same time, it’s important to consider the benefits of health supplements that can allow you to build up your endurance and tone your muscles.

Walking or Running?

Both walking and running provide excellent aerobic exercise opportunities if you’re working on your cardiovascular fitness. Walking and running on a regular basis can also help with weight loss and sleep, and can allow you to boost your mood. Walking and running are also easy to do without having to spend much money, although walking is better if you’re overweight and just beginning a more intensive exercise habit. Endurance walking and long, slow runs will help you to burn more calories over time than high intensity bursts of speed.

Cycling

Compared to walking and running, cycling is more about stamina and staying power without the same intensity of movement and calorie burning. As a result, cycling can be excellent for low impact, high endurance training, and can build up your glutes, quads, and hamstrings. While running spreads out more of the force of exercise, cycling can be extended over longer periods of time with less fatigue, allowing you to burn through more calories.

Swimming

Like cycling, swimming is a low impact exercise, which can help you with cardiovascular fitness, and is particularly good for your heart and lungs. If you’re injured, swimming can allow you to continue to tone your muscles and maintain your stamina levels, even if you can’t maintain high intensity exercises. Swimming can similarly help you to build up your upper body, and can be enjoyed as a low intensity exercise that can gradually work out your body and shift excess weight.

Which is Best?

While there’s no reason why you can’t combine all of these exercises if you have the ability and the time, walking and running are the easiest to get into and maintain without any of the extra issues associated with owning a bike or going to a swimming pool or the gym. If you want a more gradual, all over exercise programme, though, then swimming is hard to get away from in terms of building up different muscle groups.

Enhancing Your Performance

With all of these exercises, you should try to keep your energy levels up and your muscles toned by using supplements; these can include whey protein concentrate, beta alanine, and dextrose powder, which can help to boost your endurance, while also speeding up your recovery time and reducing your risk of injury. Natural vitamins and nutrients can also provide you with ways to keep yourself healthy before and after exercise, and can allow you to be more focused and alert when training.

Rob James enjoys researching new ways to support his work out and improve his recovery. He can be found blogging online about a variety of health and fitness topics, from exercise routines to the science behind the supplements