Regular physical
exercise is the first step towards bettering your health from every point of
view.
Be it male or female,
tall or short, fat or slender, competitive or not, your whole organism will
function better if you exercise physically regularly.
It will help you to
lose weight and to keep the weight that you have already lost down. It lessens
stress increases your physical strength and will do wonders for your
self-esteem. Besides, it decreases the risk of cardiovascular conditions.
Another beneficial
effect of regular physical exercise is that it increases the HDL (high density
lipoproteins) or "good" cholesterol which has a protective effect on
the arteries.
Physical exercise
strengthens your heart making it beat faster. Your muscles also increase your
ability to use oxygen an supplies them with more oxygen which increases your
working capacity. In the long run the daily physical exercise makes your heart
more efficient so that it will need to beat less when you are resting.
A good weight loss
program should include constant moderate exercise. Many nutrition experts
agree that it is wiser to increase your activity instead of drastically
cutting down calories. An extremely low calorie diet may cause nutrition
deficiency and poor health.
You should do the type of
exercise that you like.
Your exercise program
should be based on your age, your health and your physical condition.
Walking rapidly for two
or three miles at least 3 times a week is excellent exercise.
Besides the calories
burned during the exercise session, studies have proven that body metabolism
quickens.
Nevertheless not all
types of exercise are the same. The best for cardiovascular health is aerobics
(that which make your body use more oxygen and "burn" calories
continuously). Bicycling, swimming, walking, jogging and running increase the
speed and depth of breathing, overheats the body and causes perspiration.
Anaerobic exercise (Short duration intense exercise) such as weightlifting can
also benefit your health but is not good for your cardiovascular apparatus.
Your doctor can
determine the objective cardiac frequency which is the cardiac frequency with
which you should exercise regularly and continually in order to increase your
cardiac form. This should always be lower than your maximum cardiac frequency.
This calculation method
should never be used in case of cardiac arrhythmia. Naturally when designing a
personal physical exercise program other common sense parameters will also be
taken into consideration, such as the general actual sensation of physical
effort and fatigue.
In the beginning the
idea is to slowly increase the intensity and duration of the effort for a
period of from 4 to 6 weeks. The majority of cardiologists coincide in that in
order to increase physical form, 3 to 5 sessions a week of aerobic exercises
are necessary -adjusted to the cardiac frequency- lasting from 20 to 45
minutes. It is always advisable to include warm-up activities.
Consult your doctor
before beginning any exercise program.
A previous clinical
study may be indicated.
