The Benefits of Exercise
Why do we need to exercise?
- Reduce the risk of premature death, heart disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol
- Reduce the risk of developing cancer and diabetes
- Reduce or maintain body weight
- Build and maintain healthy muscles, bones, and joints
- Reduce depression and anxiety
- Improve psychological well-being
- Enhanced work, recreation, sexual and sport performance
...and perhaps the best reason to exercise??
You just feel better. Basically, when you get your heart pumping, and blood circulating, you release endorphins that elevate your mood, and burn calories for several hours and even days afterwards.
Known Benefits Of Aerobic Exercise:
- Increased maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max)
- Improvement in cardivascular/cardiorespiratory function (heart and lungs)
- Increased maximal cardiac output (amount of blood pumped every minute)
- Increased maximal stroke volume (amount of blood pumped with each beat)
- Increased blood volume and ability to carry oxygen
- Reduced workload on the heart (myocardial oxygen consumption) for any given submaximal exercise intensity
- Increased blood supply to muscles and ability to use oxygen
- Lower heart rate and blood pressure at any level of submaximal exercise
- Increased threshold for lactic acid accumulation
- Lower resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure in people with high blood pressure
- Increased HDL Cholesterol (the good cholesterol)
- Decreased blood triglycerides
- Reduced body fat and improved weight control
- Improved glucose tolerance and reduced insulin resistance
Known Benefits Of Strength Training:
- Increased muscular strength
- Increased strength of tendons and ligaments
- Potentially improves flexibility (range of motion of joints)
- Reduced body fat and increased lean body mass (muscle mass)
- Potentially decreases resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure
- Positive changes in blood cholesterol
- Improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity
- Improved strength, balance, and functional ability in older adults
There are many people out there who do not exercise either due to motivational problems or ignorance of what is actually required in terms of time invested to achieve meaningful results.
The amount of training time necessary to dramatically improve ones physical condition is far less than what most people have been led to believe; at the most an hour to an hour and a half per week, and in many cases considerably less. Everyone should be able to schedule 30 to 90 minutes of their time each week for something so important.
Think you can't afford the time or expense to exercise?
Wrong. You can't afford not to exercise.
The cost of not exercising can be far greater than a lifetime of the most expensive personal training services. Heart surgeries can cost well over $200,000 and one must often spend as much as $5,000 per year on medication afterwards for the rest of their life. If, due to lack of exercise, your mobility prematurely decreases to the point where you can't care for yourself, you may end up spending over $3,000 per month for the last 5 to 10 years of your life wasting away in a nursing home.
So, would you rather spend a few hours a week on a home exercise program, a few hundred per year on a gym membership or a few thousand a year on personal training and make the effort to stay fit? Or end up spending upwards of $30,000 per year to stay in a nursing home and have somebody else dress, feed, and bathe you, because you no longer possess the necessary level of functional ability to do so yourself?
Like the old saying goes, use it or lose it. If you can't move, you can't do anything but lie there and wait to die. If you value your life, getting some exercise should be one of your highest priorities.