Photo: Reebok
Exercise is about more than having a “perfect body” (because there’s no such thing – every body is beautiful and perfect in its own unique way) or burning the calories we intake every day.
To begin with, when we DO exercise, this is what happens:
First, your oxygen uptake goes up, increasing your heart’s ability to pump blood, as well as the ability of the blood vessels to take the vital liquid where it’s needed. Also, your cells’ mitochondria increase both in size and number. This basically means that your body creates a more efficient use of oxygen and nutrients, you use these resources to maximize performance.
Aside from this, exercising regularly increases your muscles’ strength, power, coordination, stability and flexibility.
So your body is used to a regular amount of exercise, leading to all these good things.
But then something gets in the way and you miss one day. Then another. Before you know it, a month has gone by in which you completely stopped working out.
And your body is doing a lot worse than you may imagine.
The most terrifying fact is: the fitter you are, the worse the impact’s going to be.
First, your oxygen uptake measurement starts to decline. This means that your muscles’ structure, power, strength, stamina and coordination take a huge blow.
Your sugar levels and blood pressure start rising.
Your muscle mass starts disappearing. (BTW, the older you are, the faster you’ll lose muscle mass).
Your aerobic endurance drops after three weeks of not working out.
Power, speed, agility, mobility and coordination start diminishing.
And well, technically, your muscle doesn’t “become” fat, but it’s definitely what it looks like. What happens is that your muscle cells start getting smaller (since there’s no demand for power or strength that will cause them to grow), which means that the fat cells begin to get larger.
And to top it of, it can even hasten aging!
Exercise helps us maintain our body’s functional capacities, which means that the deterioration that comes with age is slowed down.
Believe it or not, this woman is around 40 years old…
So, no matter what your reason behind skipping a workout is… something will always be better than nothing.
What do you think? Do you suffer any other symptoms when you stop exercising? Let us know!
Keep rolling till you find something you love…
Via BodyRock
