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Exercise Benefits

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Why Exercising is Important

Physical exercise is activity performed in order to develop or maintain a level physical fitness and overall health. Frequent and regular exercise is an important component in the prevention of some of the diseases such as heart disease, diabetes (type 2) and high blood pressure.

Why Stay Fit

Letting your muscles atrophy (waste away) over time is going make living, working and playing very difficult. This is what happens when you get older and don’t exercise. Cutting the lawn is going to feel like running a marathon and going upstairs like climbing a mountain. No exercise will turn your muscle into mush and they won’t be able to support your body because their filled will sugar. You have to keep moving till the day you die. If walking is all you can do that’s great!

Types of Exercise

Exercises are generally grouped into three types depending on the overall effect they have on the human body:

  1. Flexibility exercises such as stretching (Pilates) improve the range of motion of muscles and joints.
  2. Aerobic (Cardio) exercises such as walking or running focus on increasing cardiovascular endurance. Will increase oxygen levels in blood.
  3. Anaerobic (Resistance) exercises such as weightlifting increase short-term muscle strength with high intensity movement.

Exercise can be an important part of physical therapy, weight loss or sports performance.

Exercise can be fun, if done properly and make sure you eat enough calories, so when you do exercise you are building up muscles, not breaking them down for fuel. Carbohydrates are muscle-sparing; and if you don't get enough calories overall, you burn muscles up with the fat to make up the deficit.



Prevention

Frequent and regular exercise has been shown to help prevent (if possible) or to improve major illnesses such as high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, insomnia, cancer and depression, among others.

Building Muscle

Exercise is often recommended as a means of improving motor skills. Exercise has several effects upon muscles, connective tissue, and the nerves that stimulate the muscles. Many common myths have been raised surrounding exercise, some of which have a basis in reality, and some which are completely false.

No Pain No Gain

Depending upon the type of exercise you are engaged in and the underlying cause of the pain, actual pain, as opposed to discomfort, is generally a sign that you are causing more harm than good (ex. tearing a muscle). It is common to experience sore muscles the day after a workout following the start of an exercise program.

This is due many microscopic 'micro-tears' in the muscle and possibly metabolite build-up, and is known either as Post Exercise Muscle Stiffness or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). You should NOT feel pain during or immediately after a workout.

Pain at these times can indicate a serious condition that requires immediate medical attention. It is uncommon to experience pain the next day after you have been engaged in a program for a month or more. If this is the case you should seek medical advice.



Breathing

Active exhalation during physical exercise helps the body to increase its maximum lung capacity, and oxygen uptake. This results in greater cardiac efficiency, since the heart has to do less work to oxygenate the muscles, and there is also increased muscular efficiency through greater blood flow.

During breathing, males mostly use the intercostal muscles in the rib cage, females mostly use abdominal muscles. In strenuous exercise, it is likely that these differences diminish.

Burn Fat

There’s no doubt that adding more muscle to your body will help in burning fat cells. The more muscle you have the less fat cells you will have. That’s why the easiest way to lose weight is to start exercising in particular a weight bearing exercise like Treadmills or Weight Training. Because muscles are live tissue opposed to fat they require energy 24 hours a day in the form of calories. Muscles burn calories even when you are not active. If you add one pound of muscle it will use approximately 75 calories a day. 

Energy

We need energy to get through life but some of us lack this power source. Exercise will increase your oxygen levels in your blood and in turn give your more energy. Just getting on an Exercise bike twice a week can elevate your oxygen levels. If you feel tired all the time try getting into a weight training program, you will be surprised how much energy you’ll have.

Sexual Health

No question physical activity will stimulate your desire to have sex more because it will increase your energy and fire up your hormones. You will feel more desirable when you see yourself getting in shape. But remember excessive exercising might have the opposite effect leading to exhaustion and less desire in sex.

Metabolism

Exercise and larger muscle mass increases metabolism. With exercise, especially weight training, your weight may not change and may even go up, but you should lose inches overall unless you are into bodybuilding then you will gain inches. In fact, exercise increases metabolism up to 24 hours after exercise. Current research hasn't proven that exercise time of day effects metabolism, so exercise when it fits into your schedule 3 to 5 times per week.

Body Shape

Muscle is what gives your body shape. You can lose all the fat you want but if you don't have any muscle to show then you won't have any real shape to show. You can be skinny but have nothing but fat.



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