Ever wonder how it is possible for that one person in your yoga class to do a perfect headstand? Or have you been curious about what your joints and muscles look like when you do a backstroke in the pool? The body is capable of some amazing agility during exercise, and the anatomical behavior in the midst of an active lifestyle is just one reason to look into the benefits of staying in shape.
Exercise is one of the best and simplest ways to improve your health and well-being. It helps you to maintain a healthy weight, and avoiding obesity can also mean reducing the risk of many common health conditions such as hypertension, heart attack, and diabetes.
Cardio is great for shedding pounds as well as boosting the health of your heart and lungs. When taking on some endurance training, your metabolism speeds up and more oxygen is able to be distributed throughout your body. This makes the heart stronger and able to distribute blood more efficiently. Blood flow thus increases, circulation benefits, and blood pressure lowers.
Lifting weights can strengthen your muscles making you more resilient to injury and disability, especially in old age. The stress that weightlifting puts on muscles creates little tears in the muscle tissue. If you use the right weightlifting methods, this is actually a healthy reaction as it forces cells to move in and help repair and re-build the tissue. These extra cells help the muscle fibers grow in number (a process called hypertrophy) therefore making the muscle bigger and stronger.
Exercise also fine-tunes mental fitness in addition to physical fitness. Multiple studies indicate that regular exercise can decrease stress, anxiety and even depression. It allows for a more regular sleep-wake cycle, and releases hormones (such as endorphins) that effect your mood in a positive way.
Put simply, the benefits of exercise are undeniable. Whether you’re a routine couch-crasher or a veteran gym-goer, get out and stay active. It’s never too late to start.
- medlineplus.gov
- mayoclinic.org
- adaa.org
