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May 20

Physical exercise – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Physical exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. It is performed for various reasons, including strengthening muscles and the cardiovascular system, honing athletic skills, weight loss or maintenance, and merely enjoyment. Frequent and regular physical exercise boosts the immune system and helps prevent the "diseases of affluence" such as heart disease, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity.[1][2] It may also help prevent depression, help to promote or maintain positive self-esteem, improve mental health generally, and can augment an individual's sex appeal or body image, which has been found to be linked with higher levels of self-esteem.[3]Childhood obesity is a growing global concern,[4] and physical exercise may help decrease some of the effects of childhood and adult obesity. Health care providers often call exercise the "miracle" or "wonder" drugalluding to the wide variety of proven benefits that it can provide.[5][6]

Physical exercises are generally grouped into three types, depending on the overall effect they have on the human body:[7]

Physical exercise can also include training that focuses on accuracy, agility, power, and speed.[11]

Sometimes the terms 'dynamic' and 'static' are used.[citation needed] 'Dynamic' exercises such as steady running, tend to produce a lowering of the diastolic blood pressure during exercise, due to the improved blood flow. Conversely, static exercise (such as weight-lifting) can cause the systolic pressure to rise significantly (during the exercise).[citation needed]

Physical exercise is important for maintaining physical fitness and can contribute positively to maintaining a healthy weight, building and maintaining healthy bone density, muscle strength, and joint mobility, promoting physiological well-being, reducing surgical risks, and strengthening the immune system. Developing research has demonstrated that many of the benefits of exercise are mediated through the role of skeletal muscle as an endocrine organ. That is, contracting muscles release multiple substances known as myokines which promote the growth of new tissue, tissue repair, and multiple anti-inflammatory functions, which in turn reduce the risk of developing various inflammatory diseases.[12]

Exercise reduces levels of cortisol,[13] which causes many health problems, both physical and mental.[14] Conversely, exercise increases levels of saliva nitrite, which can be converted to the nitric oxide, thereby, increasing intensity and training load. Saliva testing for nitric oxide serves as a marker for training status.[15]

Endurance exercise before meals lowers blood glucose more than the same exercise after meals.[16] According to the World Health Organization, lack of physical activity contributes to approximately 17% of heart disease and diabetes, 12% of falls in the elderly, and 10% of breast cancer and colon cancer.[17]

There is evidence that vigorous exercise (9095% of VO2 Max) induces a greater degree of physiological cardiac hypertrophy than moderate exercise (40 to 70% of VO2 Max), but it is unknown whether this has any effects on overall morbidity and/or mortality.[18]

Both aerobic and anaerobic exercise work to increase the mechanical efficiency of the heart by increasing cardiac volume (aerobic exercise), or myocardial thickness (strength training). Ventricular hypertrophy, the thickening of the ventricular walls, is generally beneficial and healthy if it occurs in response to exercise.

Not everyone benefits equally from exercise. There is tremendous variation in individual response to training; where most people will see a moderate increase in endurance from aerobic exercise, some individuals will as much as double their oxygen uptake, while others can never augment endurance.[19][20] However, muscle hypertrophy from resistance training is primarily determined by diet and testosterone.[21] This genetic variation in improvement from training is one of the key physiological differences between elite athletes and the larger population.[22][23] Studies have shown that exercising in middle age leads to better physical ability later in life.[24]

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Physical exercise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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