You may have heard this all before, but exercise is SO IMPORTANT!
I feel like many people don’t exercise enough, and my hope is that by showing how good it is for your overall health, it can encourage more people to exercise more.
Does chronic diseases run in your family?
I know they definitely run in mine, and it’s for this reason I try to exercise regularly.
Exercise does so many things to manage and prevent the progression of chronic diseases and conditions. These include:
Increasing the size of the heart as it is a muscle. This improves the overall function and capacity of the heart.
Improving mental cognition to reduce the risk of developing dementia, or stop the condition from getting worse.
Contributing to a more efficient response to insulin, thus making it easier to lower blood sugar levels.
Providing a better quality of life to those who have survived cancer and lowers the risk of suffering from certain cancers.
Reducing the symptoms of depression. Different forms of exercise promote different responses on the body.
These physiological responses depend on the intensity, duration and frequency of the session.
Some other super important physiological changes include:
Lung capacity increases: During exercise your muscles are required to work harder, with the body using more oxygen and producing more carbon dioxide. This causes the lungs to work harder. This increase in work rate strengthens the lungs and the tissues around them. That added work rate also increases the maximum oxygen uptake, resulting in oxygen being transported around the body more efficiently.
Heart health is improved: As mentioned above, the heart is a muscle and therefore grows in size due to exercise. The hypertrophy of cardiac muscles increases the total cardiac output of the heart. This allows for more blood to be pumped through the body per beat and the lowering of the heart rate both at rest and during exercise.
The Australian Government recommend:
2.5-5 hours of moderate physical activity PER WEEK and 1.25-2.5 hours of vigorous physical activity PER WEEK, and muscle strengthening activity (resistance trainng) at least 2 days per week