Benefits of Exercise

What if someone told you that a thinner, healthier, and longer life was within your grasp? Sound too good to be true? According to a wealth of research, exercise is the silver bullet for a better quality of life.

Not only does regular exercise aid in weight loss, it reduces your risk for several chronic disease and conditions. Finding activities that you enjoy and that become part of your daily routine is the key to a long and healthy life.

The list of health benefits is impressive, and the requirements are relatively simple – just do it.

A lot of people associate the benefits of exercise to weight loss. This is in fact very true, but exercise has many other health and longevity benefits. It can help prevent or improve these conditions:

Heart Disease and Stroke: Daily physical activity can help prevent heart disease and stroke by strengthening your heart muscle, lowering your blood pressure, raising your high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels (good cholesterol) and lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels (bad cholesterol), improving blood flow, and increasing your heart’s working capacity. Physical active individuals have half the risk of coronary heart disease compared to their sedentary counterparts.

High Blood Pressure: Regular physical acitivity can reduce blood pressure in those with high blood pressure levels. People who exercises are 35-50% less likely to develop high blood pressure than those who are inactive.

Type II Diabetes (Non-insulin dependent): By reducing body fatness, physical activity can help to prevent and control this type of diabetes.

Obesity: Physical activity helps to reduce body fat by building or preserving lean muscle mass and improving the metabolism of the body (the body’s ability to burn calories). Obesity is a major risk factor for many diseases.

Back Pain: It has been estimated that up to 70% of low back pain is due to poor muscle tone and flexibility of the lower back muscles and poor abdominal muscles. By increasing muscle strength and endurance and improving flexibility and posture, regular exercise helps to prevent back pain.

Osteoporosis: Regular weight bearing exercises (walking, jogging, stair climbing, weight training etc…) strengthen bone formation and helps prevent the bone loss. Studies have shown that women who walked four or more hours per week had 41% fewer hip fractures than those who walked less than an hour a week.

Psychological Benefits: Four large population studies in the US and Canada have shown that general well-being is somewhat greater, and depression is much less frequent, in those who take exercises relative to those who take little or no exercise.

Improved self-esteem is one of the top benefits of regular physical activity. While exercising, your body releases chemicals called endorphins that can improve your mood. Excises can help you cope with stress ward off depression and anxiety.

How much exercise would be beneficial? For the greatest overall health benefits, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends a combination of aerobic exercises (the type that makes you breath harder, like walking or jogging) for cardiovascular conditioning; strength training (like lift weight) for muscle toning, and stretching to improve your range of motion. Try to do all three types of exercises, but remember that any form and type of exercise is better than nothing.

Here are some easy ways to incorporate physical activities into your life:

• Adopt a dog and take it for walks everyday.

• Park your car at the further end of the parking lot.

• Take the bus or ride your bike to work.

• Take up any sports/games that you enjoy.

• Take stairs instead of using the elevator.

• Do things the old-fashioned way—get up to change the television channel, and use a push lawnmower etc...

• Join a gym or get advises from fitness professionals.

How can we help you?

At Helping Hands, our knowledgeable Kinesiologists are University trained professionals that specializes in designing personalized exercise programs to help you achieve whatever your fitness goals are. Whether is to improve general fitness levels, to have a personalized home based exercise programs, to have a water/pool based programs, or to enhance sports performance, our team members will be able to help you!

Please feel free to book an appointment today with our Kinesiologist for a consultation to get you started visit http://www.physiotherapycentres.com/ or call 604-939-2833!