What most people want from fitness, probably only second to looking good/feeling good, is Stamina.
I like that word better than "endurance" which sounds painful and tedious, while "stamina" connotes an energetic or even joyful get-up-and-go attitude while including the ability to keep going when the going gets tough, pushing the point of fatigue further out while taking some pleasure or satisfaction in a strenuous or stressful life.
The older we get, or the heavier we get, the more difficult it becomes to maintain or build physical stamina. Unfortunately, it requires psychological stamina (ie, the talent to seek or invent, engage, and push through difficult challenges and opportunities. The most common adaptation for those lacking that talent is old-fashioned self-discipline) to build or maintain physical stamina. As the experts say, the day you "don't feel like" exercising is the day your body and mind need it most.
"I don't feel like it ..." is one of the most insidious, anti-life, anti-energy phrases ever invented. Why not try "I wish I hadn't been born on this planet with this annoying gravity and all these interesting and difficult things to do"? Unless they are clinically depressed, there is no cure for low-energy or relaxation-oriented people for whom inactivity or passive activity is the default setting or the desired state. Indolent is just the way they are made. Some people are naturally vigorous, some indolent, and most somewhere in-between. It's a Bell Curve of a partly-genetic and partly-cultural personality trait and it is quite obvious in what people do when given the choice.
I am on board with the Maggie's Fitness Doctrine that strength is foundational, but that strength is just a tool for building functional physical conditioning to apply to the average active and athletic American life. (Average Americans, unlike Europeans, are prone to engage in sports and/or challenging exercise.) Decent strength makes general conditioning exercises - cardio and calisthenics - more possible, more forceful, more energetic, and more enjoyable. Strength itself is great for schlepping stuff, but the general conditioning reward of strength is to be able to be more fully-engaged in all the cool things life offers - including physical chores, adventures, sex, and sports.
This is why I believe that a couple of half-hours of cardio HIIT, and a couple of hours of intense calis, are the best plan for building stamina for life for ordinary people. For beginners, get those muscles woken up with weight-training, hard and and grooving, and then move on to the challenging moving that really applies to living this brief and precious life to the fullest.
My personal test to assess people, including myself, on the Vigor-Indolence Scale is below the fold -
Give the person in question a 4 hour respite from life, with no responsibilities or worries, and nothing that has to be done now.
Rank what they do with that time on a low-energy to high-energy scale. Put napping, eating, video games, drinking, drug use, TV, shopping, golf, and internet surfing on the left end, and going for a run up a mountain or starting a new business on the right end.
I come out in the middle or somewhat upper-middle on my scale. A passing grade but not an A. C+ or, generously, a B-minus. I would pray for as long as it took, go to the gym for an hour, read for an hour or so or do some online medical CME or bang out a Maggie's post, take the dogs in the woods, shape up a garden for a while, and write some email letters to friends and family to catch up, or maybe pointlessly check out my investments for a few minutes. With a little advance notice, I might call a friend for some tennis instead of some of the above. If hubbie were free and had game, I'd re-write this and not say.
