The following is a paper based on an oral presentation I gave last week on the benefits of exercise.
“THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF
EXERCISE”
We all have bodies. Most of us want to maintain a certain level
of physical and mental health. Exercise
is one avenue for doing so. I am
an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer and I’ve done a ton of research on this
topic for the past 8 years. I have
personally witnessed the benefits of exercise with my clients, myself, and
those around me who have chosen to exercise regularly. I have seen the way it changes lives for the
better. Exercise offers many benefits
to people. Exercise
benefits people physiologically, psychologically and also benefits people’s
long-term quality of life.
First, let’s talk about the
physiological benefits of exercise.
Exercising benefits us
physically, on many levels. It benefits
our organs, brain, muscular and skeletal systems. Our entire bodies benefit down to the
cellular level. Here are some specific examples:
- Weight bearing exercise increases bone
density, which staves off osteoporosis and makes stronger bones, which are
harder to break.
- One Australian study done on women with
hip osteopenia proved weight bearing exercise increased bone density compared
to the control group, who were taking calcium supplements but continued to
experience bone loss. Those on the exercise program improved 0.5% compared with
a 0.9% loss for the control participants (Bolton, 2012). I have never once heard of a woman taking calcium supplements and gaining bone density, but I have known a woman who increased her bone density after training with me.
- Aerobic exercise benefits our
circulatory system and heart, making it much more efficient and increasing our
endurance in tough physical situations.
- Weight bearing exercise increases our
physical strength, our ability to lift things and carry heavy objects. Many of my clients report being able to carry in the groceries with a lot less difficulty after training with me, it's probably the most common thing I hear after the first couple of weeks!
- Exercise can aid in reducing adipose
(fat) tissue, a common desire in people who are or perceive themselves to be
overweight. This is the number one reason people come to me. Exercise is the catalyst to weight loss that works especially well when eating a good, clean, healthy diet.
- Exercise can reverse and/or stave off
the effects of many diseases, including PCOS, type 2 diabetes, hypertensions
and many others. “Physical activity affords significant acute and chronic
benefits for those with type 2 diabetes. The benefits of chronic physical
activity are more numerous than those of acute physical activity, emphasizing
the need for regular participation by those with type 2 diabetes and those at
risk for this form of diabetes” (Albright, 2000)
- Exercise can increase coordination and
body control.
Exercise can make us feel better, make
us stronger, make us more capable of handling physical burdens and increase our
endurance. It makes our bones stronger,
our hearts healthier, and our body systems function better.
A family member of mine has a disease called
polycystic ovarian syndrome, or PCOS.
It’s a disease that effects the ovaries and causes issues such as
insulin resistance (which causes weight gain), excessive testosterone
production (which can cause unsightly facial and body hair growth) as well as
irregular menstrual cycles and infertility.
The more adipose tissue a person with PCOS has, the worse their symptoms
become. She was able to reverse
and significantly reduce most of the symptoms related to her disease simply by
exercising regularly and keeping her weight down.
Now that we’ve talked about how
exercise benefits people physiologically, now we’re going to talk about the
psychological benefits of exercise.
- Exercise causes the brain to release
endorphins that create a happy and/or euphoric feeling that improves mood.
- Exercise has been proven to aid in the
treatment of many psychological disorders including depression, bipolar
disorder, and anxiety.
- “Exercise appears to be an effective
treatment for depression, improving depressive symptoms to a comparable extent
as pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. Observational studies suggest that active
people are less likely to be depressed, and interventional studies suggest that
exercise is beneficial in reducing depression” (Blumenthal 2012)
- Exercise improves cognitive function
and memory. “a meta-analysis of studies that randomly assigned participants to
exercise and nonexercise conditions found that exercise has positive effects on
cognitive functioning” (Bjorklund, 2015)
- Exercising in multiple planes can help
build neural pathways in the brain and increase intelligence.
Exercise can help us maintain or gain
mental health. A lot of my clients have told me that
they’re a lot happier since working out with me regularly. I have one client in particular who told me
she’d been suffering from severe depression before we started working out together
and that it’s been gone ever since we started.
That makes me really happy. Not only that, but I have felt the effects of exercise on myself. When I am feeling down, anxious, or even PMSing, I often use exercise to pull myself out of that mental funk and it works really well.
Now that we’ve discussed the
physiological benefits of exercise and the psychological benefits of
exercise, let’s discuss the long-term benefits of exercise on quality of
life.
- Exercise has been proven to help
stave-off or fully prevent many chronic illnesses especially those associated
with old age
- Exercise often improves symptoms of chronic
diseases, such as improving the aerobic capacity in asthmatics and decreasing
their reliance on a corticosteroid inhaler (Fanelli, 2007). In the study cited above, they had a control group of asthmatic children and a test group of asthmatic children. The control group did not exercise, but the test group began a regular exercise program. Over the course of the study, the test group began to rely less on their inhaler, unlike the control group.
- People with the genetic markers that
increase their risk for getting Alzheimer’s Disease can lower their risk
through regular exercise, and those who already have Alzheimer’s Disease can
slow progression of the disease through a regular exercise program. “A simple
exercise program, 1 hour twice a week, led to significantly slower decline in
ADL score in patients with AD (Alzheimers Disease) living in a nursing home than routine medical
care” (Roland, 2007)
- People who use their muscles are less
likely to lose them. Those who exercise
regularly are less likely to lose the use of certain body functions, like walking,
and the ability to bike, if they continue to do so as they age.
- People who exercise regularly maintain
more cognitive function, have less cognitive decline as they age, and prevent
memory loss as they age better than those who do not.
- If you exercise regularly you are able
to maintain your muscle mass, so you won’t start losing it with those who don’t
exercise when you hit your 30s. This
aids in maintaining your metabolism and preventing the weight gain and other
negative side effects associated with aging.
Exercise can help us maintain a good
quality of life until we die. Exercise can also help those suffering from
chronic illnesses to improve their quality of life. I met an old man in his 90s when I
worked at a hospital as a registrar. I
thought he was 70 at the oldest. I asked
him what his secret was, he told me he biked everywhere he went every single
day. He told me it kept him young.
As you can see, exercise
offers many benefits.It
benefits us physiologically, mentally, and it benefits our long-term quality of
life. The
purpose of this presentation was not to convince you to exercise, but simply to
inform you of the benefits you may experience if you choose to incorporate it
into your daily life. Exercise is medicine.
References
Albright A, Franz M,
Hornsby G, et al. American College of Sports Medicine position stand.
Exercise
and type 2 diabetes. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 2000; 32:1345-60.
Bolton KL, Egerton T,
Wark J, Wee E, Matthews B,
Kelly A, Craven R, Kantor S,
Bennell KL.
The
University of Melbourne, Department of
Physiotherapy, Australia.
Journal of Science and Medicine in
Sport [2012, 15(2):102-109]
Blumenthal, J. S. (2012). Is
Exercise a Viable Treatment for Depression? ACSM's Health & Fitness
Journal.
Bjorklund, B. R.
(2015). The Journey of Adulthood (8th Edition ed.). Upper Saddle River,
NJ:
Pearson Prentice Hall.
Fanelli, A., Cabral,
A. L. B., Neder, J. A., Martins, M. A., & Carvalho, C. R. F. (2007).
Exercise
training
on disease control and quality of life in asthmatic children. Medicine and
science
in sports and exercise, 39(9),
1474.
Rolland,
Y., Pillard, F., Klapouszczak, A., Reynish, E., et al. (2007). Exercise Program for Nursing
Home Residents with Alzheimer’s Disease: A 1-Year Randomized,
Controlled Trial.
Journal of the American
Geriatrics Society, 55: 158-165.
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