Here are the benefits, in rough order of magnitude:
– Live with less pain and disability
– Live longer
– Have more energy
– Spend less time eating
– Can do more physically difficult jobs
– Slight increase in average intelligence / avoid more decline in old age
– Can escape or otherwise deal with dangerous situations
Here are the things to do, in rough order of benefit (therefore you should progress with the top ones first):
- Stop eating more calories than you need (macro weight decrease will help avoid back and knee pain, as well as avoid diabetes and similar, and reduction in eating time will help your productivity and teeth)
- Substitute fatty, sugary, and excessively salty foods with healthier and fresher versions (make it easier to restrict calories by maintaining fullness with larger physical quantities of food, improve energy and tooth health)
- Do 5 minutes of high-intensity workout a day (has surprisingly large general health benefits)
- Do wind sprints on soft surfaces e.g. grass or turf (further improves health benefits, increases energy, and allows running away from dangerous situations)
- Do core work like leg raises, planks, and oblique exercises (to prevent your back from giving out, especially due to sitting down, as most people in prosperous civilizations do for long stretches of time)
- Buy a good pair of sunglasses, mouthguards, pads, cups, etc. to avoid damage to particularly sensitive body parts.
- Implement a full-body, moderate weight-lifting program (build bone density, avoid injury due to overlifting, improve ability to do physically challenging jobs). This typically consists of pull-ups or pushups/bench pressing, weighted squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, and complementary exercises. At a beginning level, these are done at a weight that causes you to almost fail at the end of 3 sets of 10 repetitions.
- When you implement the weight-lifting program, also be sure to implement a comprehensive sequence of foam rolling and full-body stretching (no muscle left behind) to enhance recovery time and to prevent muscles from getting too tight (leading to injury).
- Medically required supplements to address deficiencies or age-related conditions.
- 20-20-20 rule or similar, to prevent eye damage due to near focusing.
- Martial arts/self-defense/various preparedness training every year or ten – just enough to learn punching, a little kicking, and some escapes.
- Do high-intensity interval training that works the whole body, along with enhanced core work for about 30-40 minutes a day (improves energy and overall physical capability, and helps prevent back pain), with breaks as needed or based on your life schedule e.g. travel. I highly recommend Insanity: MAX 30, but any number of other workouts will get this done.
- Optimal nutrition including spreading meals throughout the day, optimizing levels of vitamins and minerals, and breaking up protein and carb meals as necessary (modest health and energy benefits)
You don’t need more cardio than what Shaun T will give you. While powerlifting is good, it’s easy to hurt yourself and doesn’t make sense unless your profession requires lifting heavy weights. Likewise, bodybuilding is for looks more than strength, and takes a lot of time. Long-distance running is crazy unless you have a physical fitness test (e.g. in the military special forces) that needs it. Almost no one runs for an hour or more in real life.
As for the vast majority of sports, if it gets you to do work when you otherwise wouldn’t, then do it. However, you have to remember that you earn the opportunity to play sports by training and building up your body first. Playing sports and physical games without cardio, strength training, stretching, agility, and proper form for each move is a recipe for life-long injuries. When you train, you train for loads beyond what you would do in the game. You start small and build up until playing the game is easier than your training. You also have to bear in mind that many sports will get you hurt – that is why I only advise it if that’s what it takes to get you moving.
This is what not to do:
– Long distance running or any long-duration cardio (1 hour+). It tends to reduce muscle, it takes a long time, and it beats up your joints.
– Lifting heavy weights unless you’re well conditioned and recovering well. Too much chance for injury.
– Doing exercises out of form. Upright row too high can be a problem, weighted flys without complete control, squatting where your knees are getting way out in front of your toes and so your patellar tendon is holding big loads, bending your back instead of your legs, too much weight in any overhead or shoulder exercise, continuing to jump when you’re too weak to go up strong, stretching too quickly.
– Not warming up before intense workouts. A few pullups are fine, but beyond that level of exertion, you greatly increase the chances of injury.
– Doing serious workouts when you’re clearly exhausted. Once you are doing serious workouts, the focus is not on the workout, but on the recovery from the workout.
– Something to avoid: high intensity interval training while you still have to use your brain later on in the day.
– Steroids and testosterone unless you are clearly deficient, or are a professional athlete and prepared to pay the price for a good reason (not your own ego issues). The fitness benefits do not remotely offset the health problems they cause.
As a professional athlete, sports or industrial: you do what you have to do to avoid injury first; then after that you work to get better, stronger, faster. As an industrial athlete, it’s especially important to do compensating work to condition your body to loads that are above what you use day-to-day – things like additional core work, cross-training, and wind sprints if you are doing a lot of lifting only.