Lifestyle activities simply make your lifestyle more active. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator, working in the garden instead of watching TV, or walking around the neighborhood every evening can improve your health.
The minimum requirement to improve your health is to accumulate (or add together) 30 minutes of these activities over the course of a day. This must be done everyday or nearly everyday. Each of the 30 minutes should be at an intensity equal to that of a brisk walk.
Health-Related Fitness Activities
There are 5 areas of fitness which are considered health-related. These 5 areas are cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition.
When a person improves in one of these areas it has been shown to significantly reduce that person's risks of premature death and debilitating diseases.
The minimum requirement to significantly reduce a person's chances of premature death and debilitating diseases is different for each of the 5 components. This is at a level of health which is higher than that achieved with only the lifestyle activities.
There are 6 areas of fitness which are considered sports-related. These 6 areas are agility, balance, coordination, power, reaction time, and speed. Different sports require different levels of each of these areas. Whether you compete recreationally or professionally you will see an improvement in your game by increasing your capacity in both the health-related and sports-related fitness areas.
Sports-related fitness is not considered a healthy lifestyle for the sake of improved health. However it often is required for improved competition and enjoyment of sports and games.
The requirements to significantly improve a person's abilities in these areas should be specific to the sport of interest, to the individual, and to the level of competition.