Positive effects of working out


Benefits of Physical Activity | Physical Activity

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Reduce Your Health Risk

The good news is that moderate physical activity, such as brisk walking, is generally safe for most people.

Cardiovascular Disease

Heart disease and stroke are two leading causes of death in the United States. Getting at least 150 minutes a week of moderate physical activity can put you at a lower risk for these diseases. You can reduce your risk even further with more physical activity. Regular physical activity can also lower your blood pressure and improve your cholesterol levels.

Type 2 Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome

Regular physical activity can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is some combination of too much fat around the waist, high blood pressure, low high-density lipoproteins (HDL) cholesterol, high triglycerides, or high blood sugar. People start to see benefits at levels from physical activity even without meeting the recommendations for 150 minutes a week of moderate physical activity. Additional amounts of physical activity seem to lower risk even more.

Strengthen Your Bones and Muscles

As you age, it’s important to protect your bones, joints, and muscles – they support your body and help you move. Keeping bones, joints, and muscles healthy can help ensure that you’re able to do your daily activities and be physically active.

Muscle-strengthening activities like lifting weights can help you increase or maintain your muscle mass and strength. This is important for older adults who experience reduced muscle mass and muscle strength with aging. Slowly increasing the amount of weight and number of repetitions you do as part of muscle strengthening activities will give you even more benefits, no matter your age.

Improve Your Ability to do Daily Activities and Prevent Falls

Everyday activities include climbing stairs, grocery shopping, or playing with your grandchildren. Being unable to do everyday activities is called a functional limitation. Physically active middle-aged or older adults have a lower risk of functional limitations than people who are inactive.

For older adults, doing a variety of physical activity improves physical function and decreases the risk of falls or injury from a fall. Include physical activities such as aerobic, muscle strengthening, and balance training. Multicomponent physical activity can be done at home or in a community setting as part of a structured program.

Hip fracture is a serious health condition that can result from a fall. Breaking a hip have life-changing negative effects, especially if you’re an older adult. Physically active people have a lower risk of hip fracture than inactive people.

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Increase Your Chances of Living Longer

See physical activity recommendations for different groups, including:

  • Children age 3-5.
  • Children and adolescents age 6-17.
  • Adults age 18-64.
  • Adults 65 and older.
  • Adults with chronic health conditions and disabilities.
  • Healthy pregnant and postpartum women.

An estimated 110,000 deaths per year could be prevented if US adults ages 40 and older increased their moderate-to-vigorous physical activity by a small amount. Even 10 minutes more a day would make a difference.

Taking more steps a day also helps lower the risk of premature death from all causes. For adults younger than 60, the risk of premature death leveled off at about 8,000 to 10,000 steps per day. For adults 60 and older, the risk of premature death leveled off at about 6,000 to 8,000 steps per day.

Manage Chronic Health Conditions & Disabilities

Regular physical activity can help people manage existing chronic conditions and disabilities. For example, regular physical activity can:

  • Reduce pain and improve function, mood, and quality of life for adults with arthritis.
  • Help control blood sugar levels and lower risk of heart disease and nerve damage for people with type 2 diabetes.
  • Help support daily living activities and independence for people with disabilities. Also see:
    • Health Benefits Associated with Physical Activity for People with Chronic Conditions and Disabilities [PDF-14.4MB]
    • Key Recommendations for Adults with Chronic Conditions and Disabilities [PDF-14.4MB]

Benefits of Exercise: MedlinePlus

We have all heard it many times before - regular exercise is good for you, and it can help you lose weight. But if you are like many Americans, you are busy, you have a sedentary job, and you haven't yet changed your exercise habits. The good news is that it's never too late to start. You can start slowly, and find ways to fit more physical activity into your life. To get the most benefit, you should try to get the recommended amount of exercise for your age. If you can do it, the payoff is that you will feel better, help prevent or control many diseases, and likely even live longer.

What are the health benefits of exercise?

Regular exercise and physical activity may:

  • Help you control your weight. Along with diet, exercise plays an important role in controlling your weight and preventing obesity. To maintain your weight, the calories you eat and drink must equal the energy you burn. To lose weight, you must use more calories than you eat and drink.

  • Reduce your risk of heart diseases. Exercise strengthens your heart and improves your circulation. The increased blood flow raises the oxygen levels in your body. This helps lower your risk of heart diseases such as high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, and heart attack. Regular exercise can also lower your blood pressure and triglyceride levels.

  • Help your body manage blood sugar and insulin levels. Exercise can lower your blood sugar level and help your insulin work better. This can cut down your risk for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. And if you already have one of those diseases, exercise can help you to manage it.

  • Help you quit smoking. Exercise may make it easier to quit smoking by reducing your cravings and withdrawal symptoms. It can also help limit the weight you might gain when you stop smoking.

  • Improve your mental health and mood. During exercise, your body releases chemicals that can improve your mood and make you feel more relaxed. This can help you deal with stress and reduce your risk of depression.

  • Help keep your thinking, learning, and judgment skills sharp as you age. Exercise stimulates your body to release proteins and other chemicals that improve the structure and function of your brain.

  • Strengthen your bones and muscles. Regular exercise can help kids and teens build strong bones. Later in life, it can also slow the loss of bone density that comes with age. Doing muscle-strengthening activities can help you increase or maintain your muscle mass and strength.

  • Reduce your risk of some cancers, including colon, breast , uterine, and lung cancer.

  • Reduce your risk of falls. For older adults, research shows that doing balance and muscle-strengthening activities in addition to moderate-intensity aerobic activity can help reduce your risk of falling.

  • Improve your sleep. Exercise can help you to fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer.

  • Improve your sexual health. Regular exercise may lower the risk of erectile dysfunction (ED) in men. For those who already have ED, exercise may help improve their sexual function. In women, exercise may increase sexual arousal.

  • Increase your chances of living longer. Studies show that physical activity can reduce your risk of dying early from the leading causes of death, like heart disease and some cancers.

How can I make exercise a part of my regular routine?

  • Make everyday activities more active. Even small changes can help. You can take the stairs instead of the elevator. Walk down the hall to a coworker's office instead of sending an email. Wash the car yourself. Park further away from your destination.

  • Be active with friends and family. Having a workout partner may make you more likely to enjoy exercise. You can also plan social activities that involve exercise. You might also consider joining an exercise group or class, such as a dance class, hiking club, or volleyball team.

  • Keep track of your progress. Keeping a log of your activity or using a fitness tracker may help you set goals and stay motivated.

  • Make exercise more fun. Try listening to music or watching TV while you exercise. Also, mix things up a little bit - if you stick with just one type of exercise, you might get bored. Try doing a combination of activities.

  • Find activities that you can do even when the weather is bad. You can walk in a mall, climb stairs, or work out in a gym even if the weather stops you from exercising outside.

  • Aerobic Exercise: Top 10 Reasons to Get Physical (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research) Also in Spanish
  • Exercise: 7 Benefits of Regular Physical Activity (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research) Also in Spanish
  • Health Benefits of Water-Based Exercise (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Also in Spanish
  • Physical Activity and Health: The Benefits of Physical Activity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Also in Spanish
  • Real-Life Benefits of Exercise and Physical Activity (National Institute on Aging)
  • Staying Active at Any Size (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases) Also in Spanish
  • Step It Up! Get Active for Your Health (National Institutes of Health) Also in Spanish
  • Why Exercise? (American Academy of Family Physicians) Also in Spanish
  • Why Physical Activity Is Important (for Girls) (Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women's Health)
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  • Article: Prevalence of physical activity levels and perceived benefits of and barriers...
  • Article: Increasing Shoe Longitudinal Bending Stiffness Is Not Beneficial to Reduce Energy. ..
  • Benefits of Exercise -- see more articles

How long to wait for the effect of training

Forget magazines that promise you will lose weight in a few days of training or that you will have an athlete's body if you do 10 push-ups a day. It takes patience, motivation and consistency to see results from sports. You don't have to go far to do this - you can do it without leaving your home!

Below we describe the stages that you will go through when playing sports.

It is very difficult - maybe even almost impossible - to accurately measure the effect of sports in just 2-3 weeks. Not overly motivated people give up after this short period of time.

And this is a big mistake: 3 weeks is the minimum amount of time that you need to change your habits, get used to training, learn the minimum skills in a particular sport. 3 weeks is a turning point. Be patient and don't give up!

Even if the results of training do not immediately reflect on your body, this does not mean that nothing changes. You can feel the positive effects in different ways.

Are you less irritable than before? Are you no longer out of breath after climbing stairs? Are you gradually gaining confidence? These are the positive, less noticeable effects of exercise. You are moving in the right direction, keep training!

After about 2 months of training, your body will begin to transform, and you will be able to notice the first physical changes, muscle relief will appear. However, we are we advise you not to stand on the scale - this can mislead you and negatively affect your motivation. Do not stop. The main indicators of changes in the body are your clothing, health and well-being. And nothing else!

To multiply the impact of sports activities on your body, follow a serious training plan: at least 3 sessions per week . At the same time, it makes no sense to exercise every day - the body needs rest to consolidate the effect of exercise.

Nutrition is just as important to your transformation. Eating the Right at the Right Time will help you capitalize on the effort you put in whether you're at the gym, at home or outside. To get the most out of your workouts and achieve the results you want, you must be willing to change your daily diet.

All the results of your work will be visible after about 3 months of regular classes. If you have been following your workouts well and eating right, then your work will pay off, we assure you!

Of course, the results will be individual for each person. We don't have the same genetic code, basic fitness level, nutritional issues, or morphology.

As you now understand, it is quite difficult to establish an accurate calendar of training results and the impact of exercise on the body. Be patient and persistent, and the results will definitely appear!

Are you already exercising? Tell us about your experience in the comments.

Sport and energy: how does training help you to be "in the resource"? | Fitness

Those who have not yet included regular fitness classes in their schedule may be surprised by energizers who go for a run at six in the morning, and then move mountains with vigor, showing miracles of productivity. In fact, there is a scientific explanation for this: sports can be a kind of source of energy if you know how to “extract” it correctly. Anna Auzbievna Gusova (@dr.annagusova), PhD, endocrinologist, nutritionist, sports medicine doctor and lecturer of the Sports Endocrinology course from the ANTEMA.Education project, tells more about this.

When a person introduces regular physical activity into his life, he begins to feel better. There is even such a thing as “muscle joy”. This phenomenon is very multifactorial, but there are also purely physiological explanations. In the working muscle tissue, substances important for health are produced - myokines, which have an anti-inflammatory effect and in many respects "oppose" adipokines - hormones of adipose tissue, helping to maintain health and youth. During sports, endorphins are secreted, which cause a feeling of pleasure, the production of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin increases, and blood circulation improves in general, which affects both the functioning of internal organs and brain function, giving a feeling of cheerfulness and energy.

In itself, good health, vivacity and improvement of intellectual abilities that appear with regular, properly selected training and help to do everything, serve as a good motivation for continuing activity. And this is in addition to improving physical fitness! And so it turns out that people who live in motion want to move even more, drawing energy from their activity. And for those who are sedentary, finding motivation is a problem. Of course, there are situations when, even with formally good health, a person does not have the physical strength to train, there is increased fatigue and weakness, but this is a reason for examining, identifying and correcting nutrient deficiencies, and not for eliminating stress from your life. The presence of such a condition is a background for the development of various kinds of diseases, therefore, in such a situation, you need to act, and not wait.

Understanding how important physical activity is for a person, it may seem strange that not all people regularly exercise. On the one hand, this is a psychological question: what does a person put in the first place, what are his priorities, if he cannot make time for his health and start exercising. On the other hand, physiology also plays a role. From the point of view of an endocrinologist, those who are less active have a different balance of hormones, and therefore these people may feel a lack of strength, less vigor. For example, with an excess of adipose tissue, more insulin is secreted, and less testosterone than in people with a normal fat mass. And a high level of testosterone is a desire not to sit still, to get new experience, new impressions, new information. Testosterone is ambition.

Studies have shown that for maximum health benefits, training should be varied in intensity and type of work and load different muscles. However, during extremely intense training, testosterone levels normally drop, and the ratio of testosterone and cortisol, the stress hormone, changes. Usually, after some (rather short) time, its level returns to the individual norm, and against the background of a gradual decrease in fat mass, this level may even gradually increase. Proper recovery plays a key role in maintaining functionality and the correct ratio of hormones.

Where does energy come from?

There are several main ways for cells to obtain energy: with the use of oxygen (aerobic) and without it (anaerobic). The second option is anaerobic glycolysis, which is used by the body for energy during strength training, as well as to some extent during high-intensity cardio. This way of obtaining energy by the cell is rather unproductive; as a result of the breakdown of one glucose molecule, only two ATP molecules are formed, however, during such training, an increase in muscle mass and speed-strength parameters occurs to a greater extent. Aerobic activities of low or moderate intensity are much more efficient in terms of energy production. Under such loads, energy in the cell is formed with the participation of oxygen, and 36 ATP molecules are obtained from one glucose molecule. ATP molecules serve as a source of energy for cells for various biochemical processes, and glucose is the main substrate for the formation of ATP molecules.

With regular cardio training, the number of mitochondria - "energy stations" - in the muscles increases. Thus, the more we train, the more efficiently the muscles generate and expend energy. In a balanced training process, both aerobic and anaerobic loads are necessary. Depending on the needs, their ratio can be changed, without forgetting about the necessary restoration.

For a quality recovery after physical exertion, you need enough sleep, good nutrition and the absence of deficiencies of important vitamins and microelements. In the absence of sufficient conditions for high-quality recovery, it is impossible to get all the benefits from playing sports. At the same time, it should be understood that in the vast majority of cases in the most severe conditions (for example, after operations), any options for physical activity, including breathing exercises, have a positive effect on health. The exception is the acute phase of infectious diseases, COVID-19- in this case, classes should be postponed until the condition stabilizes. Physical activity in conditions of severe iron deficiency can be ineffective, and sometimes unhealthy.

Deficiencies of vitamins and minerals can in principle be one of the factors in the development of mitochondrial dysfunction - a situation in which mitochondria work poorly, energy production processes are hampered. In this case, physical activity will not be a solution to the problem: correction of existing deficits is needed. If a person does not have a micronutrient deficiency, an increase in physical activity will ultimately lead to an increase in the amount of muscle mass and an improvement in their quality - the number of mitochondria, cellular "power plants", will increase, and endurance will increase.

There is a lot of research on how to make your workouts more effective by choosing the "right" conditions for them. So, in one of the works it is stated that training in the evening is more effective in terms of fat burning, and training in the morning is dangerous. In another, there is evidence that exercising before breakfast is most effective for weight loss, and energy is best used in the morning, and therefore at this time of day we can eat more high-calorie foods with less risk of gaining weight. The most balanced idea seems to be the presence of individual biorhythms. Therefore, in order to decide which training schedule is right for you, you need to focus on your own feelings. It is important to listen to yourself, understand the state of your body, and after that try training in unusual conditions, trying to find the right option.

How not to go "in the red"?

Paying attention to how you feel is also the key to making your workouts give you energy and not take it away. With sufficient recovery and no deficits, this should not be a problem.

There are common nutritional deficiencies that affect well-being. In their presence, sports do not have the significant positive impact on health that is potentially possible. We are talking about the lack of the following substances:

  • Iron . It is a participant in many biochemical processes in the body - the transformation of hormones, detoxification and others. One of the main biological functions of iron is the transport of oxygen as part of heme, the main erythrocyte carrier protein of aerobic processes in the body. With the help of heme iron, red blood cells provide tissues with oxygen after it enters the lungs. Iron-containing proteins provide the muscles with an oxygen reserve during exercise. That is why, with a lack of iron, training is given with great difficulty and does not bring the desired effect.
  • Vitamin B12 . All B vitamins are especially needed by those who play sports, as they are coenzymes in the reactions of energy production in cells. Vitamin B12 is involved in the process of hematopoiesis, and its deficiency can also lead to a deterioration in the supply of oxygen to tissues.
  • Magnesium . This element is essential for heavy loads. It affects the recovery of muscles, promotes their relaxation.
  • Protein . To maintain muscle mass, a person needs to eat at least 1 g of protein per 1 kg of muscle mass daily. With physical activity, the need for protein increases.
  • Omega-3 fatty acids . It is a structural component of high-quality membranes - cell membranes. In the course of intensive training, muscle microtraumas always occur. The higher the omega-3 content, the faster muscle recovery after exercise. The content of omega-3 fatty acids in membranes can be measured using an analysis called the "omega-3 index".
  • Vitamin D . It has many positive effects on the entire body. Affects the immune system, the production of sex hormones, including testosterone, neuromuscular transmission. Contributes to the normal functioning of muscle and bone tissues.

Maintaining the water balance also affects the recovery processes.


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