What are the best ways to work out for health?

There are several major components to physical fitness, including cardiovascular fitness, strength, flexibility, and balance. Workouts that emphasize a balance among different aspects of fitness and a wide variety of activities will be better for you than just focusing on one single activity or aspect of fitness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that adults engage in a minimum of 150 minutes of cardiovascular exercise a week and do two strength-training sessions a...

There are several major components to physical fitness, including cardiovascular fitness, strength, flexibility, and balance. Workouts that emphasize a balance among different aspects of fitness and a wide variety of activities will be better for you than just focusing on one single activity or aspect of fitness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that adults engage in a minimum of 150 minutes of cardiovascular exercise a week and do two strength-training sessions a week.

Cardiovascular exercise is any sort of continuous activity such as walking, swimming, cycling, or rowing that elevates your heart rate enough so that you are breathing slightly harder than normal and sweating slightly but not so high that you cannot comfortably sustain the activity for at least 15 minutes. Experts recommend that you do what is called "cross-training", meaning balancing walking or jogging with cycling or rowing with swimming to avoid overuse injuries.

Strength training increases the ability of your muscles to exert power. Practically, strength training helps in every aspect of daily life, including carrying groceries, housecleaning, or gardening. A good strength-training program works all major muscle groups in pushing and pulling directions. For basic health, two fifteen-minute sessions a week including 8 to 10 basic exercises are recommended. You can use body weight (as in push-ups and sit-ups), machines, free weights or resistance bands for strength training. 

See the references below for more detailed information.