Why Is Exercise Good for You?
Filed Under: Exercise, Featured, Healthy Living
photo by mikebaird
There’s a saying, “Use it or lose it.” That’s pretty much why exercise is good for you. But that’s just the short answer. The details of what actually happens in your body are truly amazing and, I think, super motivating. Here’s the the rest of the story you won’t want to miss!
[This article is going to motivate you to exercise more. So here’s the obligatory, but important, cautionary note. If you are going to start an exercise program, you should have the OK from your doctor first to make sure that you don’t have any potential heart or other health issues.]
How Exercise Makes You Stronger and Healthier
The very first day that you start your exercise program, you will be healthier than you were yesterday. Why? Because your body immediately responds to the exercise by building new cells and tissues to support that exercise. It gets ready to better handle the exercise you will do tomorrow. Isn’t that amazing!?
There are several marvelous ways that your body changes when you begin a consistent aerobic exercise program. All of the improvements your body makes increases your VO2 Max, which is a measurement of of your fitness level. Specifically, VO2 Max measures the volume of oxygen a person can consume in one minute exercising at maximum exertion.
Here are the incredible changes you’ll see in your body:
Heart
When you train over a period of time your heart will grow in size, allowing it to pump a larger volume of blood with each stroke (or pump). This allows more oxygen to be delivered to all the cells in your body. At the same time, your heart also becomes stronger and more efficient at pumping blood.
Blood Vessels
In response to your muscles needing more oxygen, your body will grow more capillaries to deliver more oxygen faster going forward. Isn’t that cool?! In addition, over time, regular exercise will make your blood vessels become more flexible allowing them to deliver more oxygen rich blood more efficiently. And if that wasn’t enough, the increased blood flow in your blood vessels serves to clean out excess cholesterol, keeping you free of clogs which can cause strokes and heart attacks.
Red Blood Cells
As you exercise each day, your body says, “OK, I get it. You need more oxygen. Alright, turn up the red blood cell production!” As your red blood cell count increases so does your ability to receive more oxygen more efficiently.
Cellular Level
This improvement is very cool too. In each of the cells in your body there are these little power machines called mitochondria. What they do is produce energy by combining oxygen and glucose (or other fuel molecules). This combination produces ATP which is the molecule that gives your cells the energy they need to do their cellular work. When you exercise regularly, guess what happens? Yup, your body creates more and stronger mitochondria in each of your cells, making you more powerful and giving you more endurance for everything in your life! Wow! How exciting is that!?
Muscles
When you use your muscles beyond what they can handle, either through aerobic exercise or weight bearing exercise, it causes your body to build new muscle tissue. Tiny tears can occur with weight lifting, and when these tears are repaired, this is what causes the muscle to become larger and more defined. Larger, stronger muscles will raise your metabolism making weight management easier.
Your VO2 Max
If you want to test your VO2 max, a simple way to do this is to perform the Rockport Walking Fitness Test. It is well regarded as an accurate way to measure your VO2 max. If you can’t get your heart rate above 120 with fast walking, here is a similar jogging test. (Again these tests should only be done with your doctor’s approval.)
What Kind of Exercise is Best?
The best kind of exercise is the kind you do everyday for 30 minutes, whether consecutive minutes or broken up throughout the day. You should aim for a target heart rate of 55-85% of your max heart rate. Here’s the formula to calculate your maximum heart rate:
Maximum heart rate = 208 - (0.7 X your age in years)
Example: If you are 40 years old, then your maximum heart rate = 208 -(0.7 X 40)= 180.
Moderate activity level would be between 99 - 126 beats per minute.
Strenuous activity level would be between 126 - 153 beats per minute.
So it doesn’t matter if you walk or run, bike or swim, play tennis or rake the yard. As long as you do it everyday and get your heart pumping you will make yourself healthier every day. The only advantage that running has over walking is that you can burn more calories in a shorter period of time. But, the advantage of brisk walking is that it is easier on your joints than running. So just choose whichever activity you like better, and go for it!
Another thing to keep in mind is that you have to stop in the middle of your exercise, don’t fret. As long as you finish it later, it’s fine. You can do 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening. Everyone has time for that right?
My soon to be released book on healthy living will have more information on healthy exercise. In the meantime, all you need is a pair of sneakers and you’re good to go. Vary your exercise every so often for a new muscular challenge and also for fun. Here are some other aerobic activities you can try:
- biking
- cross country skiing
- swimming
- tennis
- strenuous yoga
- squash
- hiking
- kayaking
- golfing
- soccer
- jumping (jump-rope or mini-trampoline)
- dancing
Additional Exercise Resources
For more information on how exercise improves your fitness level visit Nova/Marathon Challenge.
For more information on how to incorporate exercise into your life without breaking your schedule or too much sweat, check out this excellent book by Harvey B. Simon M.D., associate professor of medicine, Havard Medical School:
- The No Sweat Exercise Plan: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, and Live Longer Gives you the science behind which exercise plan is best for health and weight loss, with sensible ways to incorporate it into your life.
Please Share!
What say you? Any exercise testimonials out there? All comments big and small are very welcomed!
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scott | Apr 18, 2008 | Reply
hi nice post, i enjoyed it
Mark-Salinas-MN | Apr 21, 2008 | Reply
I want to commend you on another great post! I have learned through my work out program, the absolute importance of understanding where my heart rate, Anaerobic base and Anaerobic threshold are. I do 3 workouts a week that include zones 3 and 4 that can last for a full hour.Identifying my VO2 max and understanding my body in relation to my heart rate has been vital to the success of my weight loss.
Mark Salinas, MN
JBourne | Apr 23, 2008 | Reply
Great info. On your list of aerobic activities, I think you could add the elliptical runner to it. Sure, it’s not the same as running or jump rope, but it’s a great and quick way to get some exercise, improve your heart, and everything else you talked about without putting lots of pressure on your feet and knees. Plus, it’s a great starting point for exercise since it’s a lot easier to do than going outside and trying to jog.
Jay | Apr 23, 2008 | Reply
But it’s so hard to get motivated! Well, luckily I’ve been working out 3-4 times a week. I was in hybernation through the winter lol!
Jay
Faraz Ahmed | Apr 24, 2008 | Reply
Exercise is the only solution for a healthy body, starting it is the most difficult part but once you get used to it its fun just to exercise.
I have found that good exercise is very addictive.
Honey | Apr 24, 2008 | Reply
That was in fact great reading. And thank you very much fro motivating me to work out. You may take a look at another article which also motivates you from a different point of view.
http://www.healthmad.com/Fitness/Why-Exercise-is-a-Must-for-You.113633
rebate processor | Apr 25, 2008 | Reply
This is a great post, I appreciate it. I’ve been trying to motivate myself to exercise more, and this is just what I needed.
I printed this out and will place it next to my exercise stuff, thank you!
agentsully | Apr 25, 2008 | Reply
@Honey - thanks for the support and the link. That’s a good one.
agentsully | Apr 25, 2008 | Reply
@JBourne - You’re so right. If you have access to an elliptical runner, they are great! Thanks for commenting!
agentsully | Apr 25, 2008 | Reply
@Mark - thanks as always for your support and sharing your story too!
gewinnspiel | Apr 26, 2008 | Reply
I am not a good commenter. But I must say that really its really a good post. We all knows that exercise is good but in your post some extra information is added. Thanks for sharing.
fahrrad | Apr 26, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the post. very informative. I always try to motivate myself for exercise but all the time i failed. Now i get more inspiration from your post hope this time i’ll win
Melody Campbell | Apr 26, 2008 | Reply
Great Post! Knowing some of the changes that my body is going through on my way to that new image in the mirror is so inspiring!
The more I learn about healthy living the more I look at myself and others differently. The look of a persons skin, hair, posture, etc is an indication of how someone is taking care of their body. And Why wouldn’t we? Why do people neglect to educate themselves with what it takes to optimize their living experience? I know the answer is different for everybody - but it’s just a curious thing that as smart as we humans are, how can we be so ignorant when it comes to healthy living.
I’m glad I found this blog - very enjoyable reading.
agentsully | Apr 27, 2008 | Reply
Hi Melody - thank you for sharing your thoughts! And thanks for the compliment! So glad to hear that you like my blog! Thanks!
agentsully | Apr 27, 2008 | Reply
Thank you Fahrrad! Good luck! Start small and build upon success!
agentsully | Apr 27, 2008 | Reply
@gewinnspiel - thank you for the encouragement!
Patrick | Apr 29, 2008 | Reply
agentsully -
This post is absolutely spot on!
I do software development for a living. While I have pretty good practices to protect myself from eye strain and repetitive stress injuries (never had even a slight bout of carpal tunnel!), the one thing I’ve never gone out of my way to include is physical exercise.
In the past 4 years, I’ve gained approximately 35 pounds. Now, that may not sound like much to many, but consider that my target weight is 165 and it is actually a pretty big difference. I have never been particularly self conscious about my appearance, so I didn’t really bother to take notice until my family began to ask me “have you gained weight?”
And recently, my girlfriend has begun a pretty strenuous running program and getting involved in races, so eventually I plunged in and started exercising.
The first day I exercised, I only walked at a moderate pace for about 15 minutes - that’s all I could do because by that point, my legs were so sore that I couldn’t continue. After a couple of days, I quickly realized I needed a decent pair of shoes (which I can’t afford right now, so I’ve switched to a bike and an elliptical to eliminate the strain on my lower legs).
Even still, for the first few days I couldn’t make it past 15 minutes - I just got too tired.
That was 3 weeks ago.
In the past week, I’ve been able to work out for 40 minutes without getting tired, and I’ve begun adding strength training. I haven’t felt this strong and energetic in years and it’s incredible how quickly my body has responded to the exercise. I don’t try to push too hard - I would still consider my workouts only moderate - but I am definitely noticing the benefits already.
All I can say is, I’m glad I pushed through those first few days when I just wanted to give up and say “it’s not worth it!” To anyone reading this and wishing you could get up and do it, well, just do it! Challenge yourself to get through 1 day. And then 3 days. And then promise yourself to finish out the week and see how you feel. And pretty soon, it won’t be hard anymore and you’ll WANT to get some exercise.
Vickie | Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for this enlightening article, Agent Sully! Everywhere I go in my daily routine (to the grocery store, bank, etc.), I see so many overweight ladies these days. (I am one of them, but sometimes, by no means as bad.)
I ask myself, “What are we doing to ourselves in this country?” I have read somewhere (probably on Yahoo) that women have about 20% less muscle mass to begin with than men. (Can’t believe it’s only 20% less.) It’s important to have good muscles, because they burn so much more energy up than fat tissue does (plus, they protect your bones). I SO wish the ladies I see sometimes would read this article and exercise! Unfortunately, some look “past the point of no return,” as in the case of the one lady who had to use a scooter to cross the street. But, I hope not!
I am WORKING on it! And I thank you & Yahoo for much inspiration!
Rostyslav | Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
Very nice well written post…
I regularly practice Yoga and i find it very useful
agentsully | Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
@Rostyslav - thanks!
agentsully | Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
@Vicky
@Patrick
-thank you both for such meaty comments! I really appreciate you sharing your stories and I wish you both the very best of luck in your exercise pursuits!!! Please stay in touch! I think you might like today’s post too!
Utah Storage | Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
glad to learn about the heart rate % stuff, i had no idea about that kind of stuff!
~jessica
nueva york | May 3, 2008 | Reply
I go three times per week to run about 30 minutes. It´s very relaxing for me.
South Yorkshire Jobssite | May 6, 2008 | Reply
I always like your post for this type of simple topics.This is very informative.Thanks.
Cirtex | May 6, 2008 | Reply
It is known to all but people don’t do exercise because it is a matter of maintaining and also a hard work for all.
background checks blog | May 12, 2008 | Reply
I battle mild depression on occasion, and running is the best medicine for me. It is sometimes tough to get out the door, but I know I feel so much better when I do.