PHYSICAL EXERCISE (Part 2)
Benefits of exercise
• Lowers death rate from all diseases, as demonstrated in the Harvard study previously mentioned
• Reduces risk of cancer
• Reduces risk of heart disease
• Lowers blood pressure
• Reduces stress
• Increases mental abilities
• Acts as an antidepressant
• Increases the immune systems response
• Reduces body fat. All sickness tends to thrive more in fatty tissue because it lacks a good blood supply, which carries the white blood cell defenders which rid your body of bacteria, viruses, and cancer.
• Reduces constipation. Colorectal cancer was the No. 1 form of cancer in 1994 among men and women as a combined group. Constipation is the major cause of colorectal cancer, and this can be greatly reduced through regular exercise.
• Increases blood flow, bringing more oxygen to the cells and ridding the body of more waste. Decreases the chances of toxic buildup in the cells, tissues, and organs because the amount of blood that is filtered by the liver and the kidneys increases.
Blood flow is sluggish through the tissues in people who perform no exercise. Exercise increases blood flow through all blood vessels, causing faster movement of oxygen and the essential nutrients into the tissues, along with waste products and toxins being moved out of the tissues. If you want an increase of white blood cells, which in turn increases your immune system’s ability to fight off sickness and disease, then increase your blood flow with regular moderate to intense exercise for 30 minutes per day.
Exercise should be aerobic — sustained non-stop activity — to elevate the heart rate and maintain elevation throughout the workout. Lifting weights does not qualify as aerobic exercise; if we lift some weight, then rest a couple of minutes, then lift some more. What we are looking for is sustained elevated heart rate, as in walking, rebounding cellular exercise, swimming, bike-riding, jogging, or using a cross-country ski machine or step-climber machine.
From a structural point of view, the best exercises are the ones that are done in a non-bent position. Therefore, swimming and walking are better than bike-riding and other sitting exercises. The reason riding or positions in which the body is bent forward are avoided is because they increase the pressure on the lower back disks and, if continued over prolonged periods of time, tend to lead to back problems. Also, if you use a step-climber machine, do not lean forward when you begin to tire, but look up and stand upright. Some of my patients have even had some problems on cross-country ski machines because of the slight forward lean in the waist. The health-rider type exercise machines are good for the rowing or pulling-back motions, which are very good for posture and middle- and upper-back muscle toning, but the negative side is that the lower back is stressed by the sitting and leaning-forward position. The best exercise for the entire body is rebounding cellular exercise.