Total Fitness and Wellness In order to develop the most effective total fitness and wellness plan it is important to first examine your personal exercise program and your existing level of physical ability. Whether your exercise comes from walking around the block or weightlifting at the gym, your exercise habits should always be evaluated with three factors in mind: volume, intensity and frequency. No matter which activities you choose to implement within your overall fitness program, your overall results will enhanced by maximizing the volume, or number of times you exercise and increasing the intensity with which you approach the exercise. Furthermore, exercising more often will invariably lead to weight loss, muscle development and cardiovascular health. With these facts in mind I chose to analyze my own personal exercise habits from a variety of angles to assess the overall effectiveness of my fitness and wellness program.

I participate in a softball league which practices two or three times per week and plays weekly games and I consider this hobby to be a primary source of physical activity in my daily life. During practice I am engaged in near constant motion, from jogging around the field to fielding ground ball drills, and both the volume and intensity of this activity is very high. The actual games become periods of occasional inactivity and the intensity is necessarily lowered, but combined with practices my softball games provide a frequent source of exercise. I also walk my dog around the neighborhood on a daily basis, and while...

A hobby of mine is photographing wildlife and finding the best natural scenes requires long hikes through the woods. Hiking is a very strenuous activity depending on the difficulty of the trail and I consider this activity to be a high-intensity exercise.
State and federal fitness mandates for schools have consistently found that "there are fundamental motor skills for enhancing physical development: locomotor, (or) moving from one place to another & #8230; nonlocomotor (or) stationary" as well as "fundamental object manipulation skills" (Shelton 2009). The fact that these skills are viewed as essential for the development of young people suggests that they are also highly beneficial throughout adulthood. Locomotion skills such as walking and jogging are best for fortifying the cardiovascular system and improving heart health. Nonlocomotion skills include turning, twisting and balancing and can be achieved through a simple yoga regimen designed to strengthen the core muscles. Object manipulation skills, exhibited in sports and games like softball which involve hitting a ball or swinging a bat, are used to focus on particular muscle groups and build overall endurance. I currently incorporate both locomotion skills, in the form of walking my dog and hiking, as well as object manipulation skills during the softball component of my exercise program. An activity like yoga could easily be added to my overall fitness routine in an effort to provide a full array…