The Importance of Exercise,
and its Effects
Knowing the importance of
exercising and the effects of exercising will make it more enjoyable.
What is exercise?
Exercise refers to
"moving your body", and these days it is called physical activity,
which is the combination of activities in daily life (living activities) and
exercises such as sports.
Humans are animals in the first place, and like other
animals, they have a “moving mechanism” in their bodies. However, as the world
became more convenient, the opportunities for exercising decreased
dramatically.
Many people feel a lack of exercise and understand that it is
better to exercise, but it is difficult to become habitual for various reasons
(hot, cold, busy, etc.)
Why you have to
exercise?
I'm sure you know that you
should exercise, but why do you need to exercise? There are two main reasons
for this.
1. Prevention of
lifestyle-related diseases
It is good for your health to
keep a good balance between the energy intake from food and the energy consumed
by exercise. However, the amount of food eaten does not change, and if you do
not exercise, the energy intake will exceed the energy consumed, and the unused
energy will be stored in the body as fat.
If this condition is repeated over
and over, fat will accumulate more than necessary and become obese. And the
risk of lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and
dyslipidemia increases due to obesity.
Exercise helps prevent
non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart attack, and diabetes. Exercise
also helps the heart to have a simple function of pumping blood.
too much is the main effect
of getting non-communicable diseases. But with exercise, the body gets excited
and thus eliminates fat in the arteries.
Exercise helps control blood vessels and also contributes to the
control of blood pressure which is a major effect on heart rate.
Simple exercises such as
walking, running, and swimming help the muscles have the ability to circulate
fresh air and to provide dirty air.
Cholesterol is a fatty
substance that stores itself in the blood vessels. Exercise helps to remove
fatty acids from the body and increase what is important.
Research shows that
exercising reduces the impact of breast and lung cancer.
Whenever you exercise, the body is in a good position to prevent various infections and viruses.
Exercise helps your muscles
get stronger and helps you fight difficult situations.
Exercise helps the joints get
lighter and enables them to work faster without getting injured.
Exercise helps bones
strengthen to avoid the effects of contracting bone diseases such as osteoporosis.
This disease causes the bones to shrink.
2. Maintaining muscle
strength and body function
After feeling sick and
falling asleep for about a week, you may feel tired or unable to move normally
and feel that your physical strength, muscular strength, and endurance have
declined. If humans do not use the functions they have, their functions will decline at an astonishing speed.
For example, the action of "walking".
It seems that it is easy to do, but when walking, many leg muscles such as
quadriceps femoris, biceps femoris, tibialis anterior, triceps surae (gastrocnemius/soleus)
Use to take one more step. we also use the muscles of my hips, waist, back, and
arms.
In other words, you can only “walk” using the muscles of the whole body.
In addition, in order to move the center of gravity and move forward, it is necessary
to have a balance ability and a cardiopulmonary function capable of moving for
a long time.
If you stop
"walking", many muscles will be lost, and your balance and
cardiopulmonary function will be reduced. If this happens, the walking speed
will decrease, you will not be able to cross the signal, or you will be
unbalanced if you have luggage and you will be staggered, you will trip over
small steps and you will have a great impact on your daily life. I will too.
You need to walk every day to prevent this from happening. Walking will
maintain the necessary muscles and functions. Also, muscle mass increases
during the growth period and then decreases with age. However, unlike bones,
muscles are tissues that can be increased by training as many as you want.
Effect of Exercise
Physical effect
The effects of exercise are often expressed in terms of body function, but they are also effective against diseases.
・ Maintaining a healthy body
shape
・ Maintenance and
improvement of physical strength and muscular strength
・ Prevention of
lifestyle-related diseases such as obesity, high blood pressure and
diabetes,
and metabolic syndrome
・ Prevention of
aging-related functional decline (locomotive syndrome)
・ Improves cardiopulmonary
function to reduce fatigue
・ Relief of lower back and
knee pain
・ Improves stiff shoulders
and coldness by promoting blood circulation
・ Improve resistance (cold
prevention)
Mental effect
I think there are many people
who have had a very good feeling, such as the feeling of exhilaration and a sense
of accomplishment, after running as hard as they could. This kind of exercise
has various positive effects on your mental health.
・ Reduction of dementia
・ Reduction of indefinite
complaints
・ Refreshment and stress
relief
How long should I
exercise?
How much exercise do you
usually do? The amount of exercise varies greatly from person to person. If you
want to start exercising from now on, please adjust the amount of exercise
referring to the following.
Walk 1000 more steps
now!
Even if you set a goal of
“Let's walk 10,000 steps a day!” For people who normally walk only about 2000
steps, it will be difficult to achieve.
Therefore, in daily life, the Ministry
of Health, Labor, and Welfare issued a guideline that says, “Let's move your
body 10 minutes more than it is now”.
Moving 10 minutes more means walking
about 1000 more steps. For example, if you use the stairs instead of the
elevator, or walk a short distance instead of the bicycle, you will have more
steps.
Other than walking, you can move 10 minutes more by standing on the
train, shopping, and holding a basket instead of a cart. You may want to think
about what you can do without overdoing it.
