You are a Machine!

Imagine that you lived in another country and in that country the rule was that are only going to have one car to last you a lifetime. The rule was put in place to teach people to take care of things and be responsible. On your 21st birthday, you are given your one and only automobile to have for your entire lifetime. Would you change your oil every 5,000 miles? Would you keep it clean? Would you put the protection on the rubber and leather? Would you put the best gasoline in it? I am sure that you would agree with me, if you were only going to have one automobile for the rest of your life, one of your highest priorities would be to take care of it. Right? You only get one body. As nice as it would be to just buy another one on Amazon, you only get one. Doesn’t it stand to reason that you should do everything in your power to make sure that it stays healthy as long as is humanly possible?

“If you were only going to have one automobile for the rest of your life, one of your highest priorities would be to take care of it”

Dialysis for 3 hours every other day or exercise 4 hours a week?

I heard the story of a man who had a brother that was a doctor. He begged his brother to take care of himself and to exercise. The man disregarded his brother’s urgings citing that he didn’t have enough time to exercise and to take care of himself. The man continued along the same course that he always had, working too much, eating too much, and sitting too much. After years of neglect he developed Diabetes. He must now go in for Dialysis for three hours a day, every other day just to stay alive! Is four hours of exercise a week really too much to ask? You are going to have to make up the time one way or the other!

“Is four hours of exercise a week really too much to ask?”

Side-effects of exercise

There are really no bad side effects to exercise. Exercise improves cognitive function and psychological well-being. Exercise has been found to be helpful in treating and preventing conditions such as: depression, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and obesity. Exercise increases cardiovascular efficiency, aerobic capacity, cardiovascular endurance, tendon, ligament, and capsular strength. Develops increased core stability, balance, kinesthetic awareness, and proprioception,  joint range of motion, joint pain relief. Develops and maintains functional length tension relationships between the muscles. Exercise decrease body fat and improves body composition by increasing lean body mass through the breakdown of muscle proteins (catabolism) and subsequent rebuilding (anabolism) muscle contractile proteins producing increased muscle tone and density, increase strength, neuromuscular coordination (rate coding, motor unit recruitment, and synchronization), increased bone and tissue strength,  muscle definition, anaerobic capacity, metabolism, and lactic acid tolerance. Reduce muscle soreness; improve muscle coordination, and increase blood flow and nutrients to the tissues. Increase anaerobic endurance, lactate threshold…should I go on?

“There are really no bad side effects to exercise”