preview

The Health Benefits of Exercise Essay

Best Essays

The Benefits of Physical Exercise to the Human Body

The benefits of physical exercise in humans far outweighs the harmful effects associated with exercise. A prescription of physical activity has been known to delay the onset or prevention of many chronic diseases. An improvement in heart function, lower blood pressure and improve functional capacity is noticed after just a few weeks of exercising. Physical activity will also result in an increase of lean muscle mass, promote weight maintenance, increased flexibility, and a generally stronger more fit individual. Conversely, exercise when preformed strenuously or obsessively can counteract such positive effects, bringing up some issues like oxidative stresses, injuries, and …show more content…

Not only does the body begin to adapt in a cardiovascular sense but also exercise has been shown to reduce hypokinetic diseases as well as cardiovascular disease.

The heart rate is a measurement of how many times the heart beats in a minute. Physically fit people tend to have a lower heart rate and during intense exercise tend to have lower rates as well. A decrease of heart rate at both rest and at fixed intensity of sub-maximal exercise [7] occurs a few months after an exercise program is begun. One’s heart rate reflects the amount of work the heart must do to meet an increase of demands of the body when engaged in activity. Heart Rate tends to increase proportionally with intensity oxygen uptake [16].

The amount of blood pumped out during systole is called the stroke volume and is less than the end diastolic volume because the ventricles do not completely empty themselves during systole. At all levels of physical activity stroke volume is increased. There is an improvement in ventricular performance with an increase of plasma volume [4] and a faster peak lengthening the rate of the left ventricle during diastole [6]. Training can improve stroke volume but by no more then about 20%. Due to the decreased heart rate an increase of ventricular filling will result and an increase in ventricular volume and thickening of ventricular walls thus

Get Access