Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: A former college wrestler and baseball player, Terry Waters loved to work out. He enjoyed working himself to the bone at the gym, and he appreciated feeling tired but virtuous in the aftermath. He thought that exercise and its healthful dividends would be a lifelong part of his life. Apart from that here in this article complied by Mid Breaker health and fitness expert share top Health Benefits of Regular Exercise for men.
Then came marriage, three kids, a grueling job as a software engineer in Boston — and a thousand and one reasons not to make it to the gym. “For a while, you tell yourself, ‘I’m still in pretty good shape,’” Waters recalls. “Okay, you’ve gained a few pounds. Yeah, your blood pressure’s a few points higher. But you’re not, like, totally sick or anything?”
Well, maybe not, by 40, Waters was 20 pounds heavier than he’d been in college. His blood pressure was inching up into dangerous territory, and his cholesterol level had only recently crept over the threshold of concern. His father, age 67, was taking medication to treat both high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Two years earlier, the old man had been wheeled into surgery for a heart bypass after waking one morning from a bike ride feeling suddenly short of breath. “Trust me, I didn’t want to go there if I could avoid it,” says Waters.
10 Health Benefits of Regular Exercise
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: The predicament is one that many middle-aged men like Terry Waters can relate to. With all the stresses of family and work, exercise starts to fall by the wayside. You even know that it’s supposed to be important. But with the lawn to be mowed and the kids needing attention, it’s more difficult to rationalise lacing up running shoes for a brisk workout. Eventually, it’s hard not to think “What’s the point?”
Why? For one very good reason. The best thing you can do to stay healthy and live long enough to spend your life with your family, or at least have a life, is quite simply this: stay as active as you can throughout the course of your life. Implementing the advice on WebMD’s Exercise and Fitness Tips to Improve Your Health provides a plethora of immediate health advantages that you may even decide that buying a gym membership is worth it if it is the best thing you can do for your health. If a drug company could come up with an anti-aging pill that had even half the side effects of regular physical activity, we would all be on it.
“Now that exercise is known to keep your heart and lungs working efficiently, that part of the exercise equation is not exactly news,” says Steven Blair, PhD, PED (Physical Education Doctor), professor of exercise epidemiology at the University of South Carolina, who is one of the top U.S. experts in the field of exercise science. “But we’ve also discovered exercise can help prevent adult-onset diabetes, improve bone health, and even reduce the risk for certain cancers. Exercise also seems to reduce depression in some people.”
Still not sold on the idea that you should rouse yourself out of your couch seat? Here are 10 Health Benefits of Regular Exercise you can enjoy from even a moderate regular workout.
1: Lower cholesterol
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: In most men, as they grow older, their cholesterol numbers seem to start going in the wrong direction. Levels of “bad” cholesterol — the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) — slowly creep up. Levels of good cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), also decrease.
The problem, however, is that such a high level of LDL and a low level of HDL is one of the major risk factors for heart disease. Too much of the cholesterol builds up in the arteries, causing hardening and heart attacks.
The most effective means of keeping LDL cholesterol levels low is to consume a diet that is low in saturated fat (which can be found in meat and high-fat dairy products). The best one way to increase healthy HDL cholesterol? Exercise.
An analysis published in Denmark back in 2007 found that the more often they exercised, the higher their HDL cholesterol tended to be. A meta-analysis of 52 exercise training studies, involving 4,200 subjects, revealed an average increase in level of 4.6 percent (sufficient to make a sizeable dent in risk for heart disease).
2: Lower triglycerides
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: Triglycerides are a unique type of fat in the blood that is not metabolized, increasing the risk of heart disease. This same Danish study also found that the most active men had, not surprisingly, high levels of HDL and low triglycerides as well.
3: Reduces the risk of high blood pressure
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: As blood pressure rises, so does the risk for heart disease and stroke. But men tend to have higher blood pressure as they age. But they don’t have to. In 2007, researchers from the University of Minnesota studied men and women aged 18 to 30 for up to 15 years. The more the volunteers biked or walked, the less likely they were to develop high blood pressure.
4: Reduced inflammation
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: Regular physical activity has been found to lower C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation. That matters because plaques on the lining of arteries clogged with cholesterol, which are most likely to break off and cause a heart attack, also tend to become inflamed. A 2006 study by Mayo Clinic researchers in Rochester, Minn., for example, found that men with high levels of aerobic fitness, as measured by VO2max, had lower levels of C-reactive protein and other measures of inflammation.
5: Better blood vessels
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: Blood vessels need to be able to become more open or more closed in response to shifting demands for oxygen. Smoking, cholesterol deposits, and ageing itself all stiffen vessels, raising the risk of heart attack. Increasing evidence suggests that exercise training can help to preserve the ability of blood vessels to open and constrict as needed when physical requirements change.
6: Lower risk of diabetes
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: Adult-onset diabetes — largely driven by excess body fat — is one of the biggest health concerns looming. Exercising regularly will help you avoid regaining the weight. But studies have shown that even for people who are overweight or obese, exercise lowers the risk of diabetes.
The Diabetes Prevention Program discovered that an exercise and weight loss program cut the risk of type 2 diabetes by a dramatic 58 percent over three years. And the volunteers in that program weren’t even running marathons. In reality, the medicine they were receiving was akin to burning an extra 593 calories of energy — roughly what most men would walk off by strolling around six miles a week.
7: Colon cancer hedge
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: Colorectal cancer is among the most common causes of cancer death in men. Some 80 percent of cases of this grave disease are preventable, experts say. A healthier diet (including more fiber and whole grains) is part of the prescription. But it turns out that exercise is just as important as diet. Research has revealed that physical activity may reduce colon cancer risk by 30-40%.
8: Strong bones
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: Other unwanted effects of aging include thinning of the bones, which can make fractures more likely. In a study that tracked 3,262 men from their 40s through their 60s, vigorous physical activity was associated with significantly reduced risk of hip fractures.
9: Weight loss
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: If nothing else, vanity should motivate you to get out of bed this morning and head for the gym: A lifetime of regular physical activity — even (or especially) something as simple as a half-hour walk most days — can prevent the belly that’s bulging over your belt today from being a FUPA by next decade.
For one study, from the National Weight Control Registry, researchers examined the habits of 3,000 individuals who had lost at least 10% of their body weight and spent a year keeping it off. It was, as it happened, not a matter of chance: Eight out of 10 of them had increased their level. The men in the group increased their level of exercise — including walking, cycling, weight lifting, aerobics, running and stair climbing — to expending roughly an additional 3298 calories each a week.
Other recent research indicates that the more physical activity men reported in a study, the trimmer their waistlines. In a 2006 Ball State University study, for example, a group of 58 volunteers began walking 10,000 steps a day. By 36 weeks, the volunteers had lost nearly an inch from their waists, and a comparable amount from their hips.
10: A longer life
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise: Add it up, and an active life is also a longer and healthier life. In a study conducted at the University of Kuopio in Finland in 2004, researchers examined health and hygiene data from15,853 men ages 30 to 59. Men who engaged in physically active leisure activities like jogging, skiing, swimming, playing ball or serious gardening over a 20-year period were up to 21% less likely to develop cardiovascular disease or to die of any cause during the study period.
Health Benefits of Regular Exercise
Regarding, health benefits of regular exercise, how much do you need? The answer depends in part on what you’re after. And burning an extra 1,000 calories a week in activities can expand your life. A half-hour walk on most days of the week is all you need to lower your risk of colon cancer and diabetes substantially. But the more physical activity that you can integrate into your daily life, the better. “Most physical activity studies have a very strong dose-response rate,” exercise authority Steven Blair says. “The more you do, the better for you.”
