Exercise as Medicine
Less than 5% of adults participate in 30 minutes of physical activity each day and only one in three adults receive the recommended amount of physical activity each week.2 Exercise has a great deal of positive health benefits and no medicine can match the cost to benefit ratio that exercise has to offer1.After reading “The Barbell Prescription”, by Andy Baker and Jonathon Sullivan it further confirmed my belief that exercise is a powerful medicine that isn’t being utilized enough. If you’re medically cleared to exercise you should be doing it. It has numerous benefits that will get to the root problems of aging. Medicine doesn’t have to be something your doctor prescribes in a pill, it can come in the form of exercise. Doctors have always encouraged people to exercise, but we need to realize the profound effects exercise can have on our health and how it can be used as a powerful tool against common ailments.
It Makes You Durable, Alleviates Pain and Burns Fat
Exercise has a clear impact on improving the muscle and skeletal tissues. Weight bearing exercise such as pushups or squats can improve bone density, joint function, tendon elasticity, tendon strength, range of motion, and overall physical function. Overall ,your risk of injurie will decrease and your body will be more durable. These effects will also continue to offer benefits as you age if you continue a strength training routine. Exercise can also transform your body’s muscle tissue into a calorie burning machine. Thus, your body will use calories and protein as fuel making your muscles more insulin-sensitive so your body can use the food you eat as fuel. Metabolic health is also improved, reducing fat and will improve your calories burned per day.
Your Heart Health is Improved
Cardiovascular disease, listed as the underlying cause of death, accounts for nearly 836,546 deaths a year in the US. That’s about 1 of every 3 deaths in the US.6 Exercise will also improve your cardiovascular health. It has been shown to improve your cardiac stroke volume, decreases resting heart rate, improves your cholesterol levels , blood pressure and tryglcerides.3
Brain Gains
Another bonus of exercise is that it has a huge positive impact on neurological health and has been shown to promote brain health, prevents cognitive impairment, and slow the development of dementia, improved memory and increases in volume in the hippocampus, a brain region crucial for processing memory, compared with those who stretched.4 Overall, the research literature strongly indicates that exercise is critical for maintaining brain function throughout the aging process. Psychological health is also improved by exercise studies demonstrating a strong correlation between physical activity and mental health. Sleep, cognitive function, mood, and quality of life have all been reported to be linked to exercise.5
These are Only A Few Of The Benefits
As you can see exercise is has numerous benefits and these are only a few of the positive effects it has other major benefits such as reduced cancer risk, longer lifespan and osteoporosis prevention. Exercising is powerful and has profound effects on your overall wellbeing. It’s important to remember that these effects can wear off if you stop exercising, so it’s important to maintain a routine throughout your life as exercise is a medicine and not a cure. The type of exercise that will give you the most value is strength training at least two to three times a week. Some examples exercises you can do without equipment are pushups, squats , or lunges.(Always talk to your doctor before beginning and exercise program). All ages can reap the rewards from strength training so start a routine today and you’ll experience the benefits unmatched by any other medicine.
Sources:
1.Sullivan, Jonathon M; Baker, Andy. The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40 (Kindle Locations 745-750). The Aasgaard Company. Kindle Edition.
2.U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010. Available at: http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/dietaryguidelines.htm.
3.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3906547/
5.https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/RTandMentalHealth.html