Benefit Of Regular Exercise

Health Benefits of Regular Physical Activity

Many people would agree that exercise is important to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and has many benefits. A few of these benefits include controlling weight, strengthening muscles, and improving cardiovascular health. Some studies show that physical fitness level may even indicate a person’s mortality rate: “Most analyses have shown a reduction of at least 50% in mortality among highly fit people compared with low-fit people… both physical activity and fitness are strong predictors of risk of death” (Warburton, Nicole, Bredin, 2006). Nevertheless, there are several obvious physical benefits of working out regularly, but many people don’t realize that regular exercise has benefits on other parts

During vigorous strength training, muscles become sore because of tiny micro-tears forming in the tissue. Over the next few days, muscles will fix those tears and build up even stronger than they were before. In the same way, physical activity has tremendous effects on bone health. According to David Forstein, an osteopathic physician, “Just like muscle, bone is a living tissue that responds to exercise by becoming stronger” (“Exercise for Your Bone Health”). Weight bearing exercise such as running, hiking, weight training or jumping rope have been found to promote bone formation and prevent bone loss associated with aging such as osteoporosis (“Health Benefits of Physical Activity”). In general, staying active keeps muscles and bones strong, and joints, tendons and ligaments flexible; this is imperative to avoiding injuries such as broken bones and pulled muscles. It also reduces the risk of joint and lower back pain and improves balance and coordination (Health Benefits of Physical

Exercise helps you meet people, cope with anxiety and frustration, and have a sense of achievement which all helps with depression (“The Importance of Exercise”). James Blumenthal, PhD, a clinical psychologist, says that “there 's good epidemiological data to suggest that active people are less depressed than inactive people. And people who were active and stopped tend to be more depressed than those who maintain or initiate an exercise program” (Weir, Kirsten). Blumenthal conducted an experiment that included four different groups of severely depressed patients; one group was prescribed a supervised exercise program, one group was told to exercise at home, one group was given an antidepressant and the last group was given a placebo pill. The group that exercised under supervision showed the same amount of remission or more than the group that had the