Workout Miracles!! How does it affect your heart

Well, it’s a no brainer. Everyone knows what workout is “act of being active” and what kind of miracles it can do to one’s body. But, hey, hey, maybe you are right about wonders of workout on your body, but you are getting it all wrong about what workout means actually. Let us guide you with the actual meaning of workout in this blog with our no brainer knowledge but a little bit of research about miracles of workout. Well, it’s not just you; most of the people think exercise and workout are only two interchangeable words, and there’s no difference between them. But here you’re mistaken, workout and exercise are not the same thing although they are related but not the same. Exercise is more of a general term that we use for any single physical activity. It could be running, cycling, walking, dancing, pushups, etc. On the other hand, a workout is a unique set of exercises in which we combine a collection of different activities to achieve a particular goal. Most people opt-in for a workout to lose weight.

Let us make you understand it more briefly. Exercise is one single activity, but the workout is the set of multiple events. Exercise can be anything that involves any physical activity like playing, running, walking, and one can do exercise anywhere, indoor or outdoor. But usually, a workout is a routine executed by the gym-goers. The workout is more intense, which helps you boost your stamina. On the other hand, exercise is more casual, which allows you to stay generally fit. Also, workout requires specific equipment to get the best results, but that’s not the case with exercising. According to cardiologists moderate exercise do more good to your overall health and heart than highly intense workouts, which may not be that beneficial as you think.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you are calling your physical activities; we mean who cares. What matters is what you are achieving with them or want to make out of it. If your main focus is fast weight reduction or boosting your stamina tremendously than workout is your go-go. But if you wish to maintain your health in general and want to maintain an average strength then don’t worry much you can do regular physical activities like walking, cycling, running and keep your health upto the mark.

How Regular Exercise Helps your Body & Your Heart

There are zillion explanations, research, and study of how regular physical activities or exercising are beneficial for one’s health or workout miracles. One of the most known benefits of regular exercise is burning calories, which ultimately helps an individual to maintain a healthy weight or to achieve the desired weight. But the miracles of daily workout is not only limited to maintaining a healthy weight, but it also improves other severe factors which are related to achieving overall good health. And those factors are improving blood sugar regulation, strengthens the heart’s arteries, healthier blood pressure, improves cardiovascular health, and a more healthy cholesterol level.

Physical activities obviously can do wonders to your physical appearance or physique like improving your sex life, trimming your waistline, and even add few more years to your life. But these are not the motivational factors for most people to stay active. Most people work out very frequently because it gives them a sense of well being, helps in sleeping better, helps to feel more energetic and relaxing. The impact of regular workout, in the long run, can be seen more on mental health than physical health. The way daily exercise helps with physical health, it also helps with mental health like Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Regular physical activities, even for half an hour, are not only beneficial for your overall body but your heart and mind too. Below are the following benefits.

Benefits To Your Heart

• Lower cholesterol:
  Moderate physical activities help in promoting proper HDL cholesterol levels and lowers harmful LDL cholesterol levels. With the consultation of cardiologists, one should workout for at least 20-30 minutes for five days a week. If you are a heart patient and can not work out for 20-30 minutes in a row, then you can divide your exercise into three intervals of 10 minutes throughout the day. We also advise heart patients that, along with regular exercise, it is also essential to follow a heart-healthy diet (to observe the highly responsive workout miracles) which are low in trans fat and high in omega-3 fatty acids.
• Decrease the risk of Diabetes:
  When we do moderate exercise or workout, our heart beats a little faster, which makes us breathe harder. All of this happens because the muscles use more glucose than usual, which lowers the blood sugar level in the long run due to which insulin in our body works better. But the intense and excessive workout diminishes all the miracles of exercise because it increases the blood sugar levels temporarily after you stop any physical activity. After all, intense workout releases more stress hormones.
• Lower Blood Pressure:
  The problem of high blood pressure or hypertension increases with age, but regular exercise helps a lot in maintaining healthy blood pressure even when you are aging. To attain this, it is not necessary to start working out aggressively instead start slow; in fact, whatever your goal is always start slow. Regular workout makes a heart more durable, and a healthier heart can pump more blood with less effort and lesser force on arteries, which ultimately lowers the blood pressure. But apart from this it is also important to follow a healthy diet, quit smoking, smart boozing and healthy sleeping.
• Improves Blood flow:
  During the workout, our heartbeat raises tremendously due to which blood flow and oxygen flow through the small arteries near the heart also increases. An increase in blood flow makes the arteries even more robust and healthier. It also helps in strengthening the muscles of the heart.

Apart from above mentioned benefits there are few more benefits mentioned below:

• Reduces Stroke
• Decreases heart disease
• Improves Workout efficiency
• Reduces the incidence of heart arrhythmia

 

Benefits To Your Overall Body

• Make You Feel Happier:
  Regular exercising helps in controlling anxiety, stress, and depression. Certain parts of our brain produce fear and anxiety; regular workout produces changes in such parts, which ultimately helps in reducing the stress levels. With daily physical activities, our heart also produces positive feelings by generating endorphins.
• Build Strong Muscles and Bones:
  Regular exercise, when combined with a healthy diet, high in protein helps in the stimulation of muscle building. It enhances the ability of one’s muscles to absorb amino acids. Regular workout not only improves the muscle’s strength, but it also builds bone density.
• Help Skin Health:
  Even moderate physical activities daily help one’s skin to glow and look even healthier. The reason behind this workout miracle is when an individual workout daily, then the individual’s body produces the production of antioxidants, which ultimately helps in protecting the cells. But a highly intense workout can do the opposite of it. To double the benefits of moderate workout to your skin we will advise you to take a healthy sleep daily and eat healthier foods for your skin.
• Improves Your Brain Health & Memory:
  The logic behind this benefit is simple when we workout our heart rate increases, which automatically enhances the flow of blood & oxygen to our brain, which improves the growth of brain cells. Because of this, our brain’s muscles strengthen and boost our memory.
• Reduce Risk Of Chronic Disease:
  Regular exercise reduces the blood pressure and fat from one’s body, which ultimately reduces the risks of developing a severe chronic disease like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and early death. To stay away from such diseases along with regular exercise, regular doctor visits are also important so that all the disease can be diagnosed and treated on time.

Apart from above mentioned benefits there are few more benefits mentioned below:

• Reducing Weight
• Increases the energy level
• Can improve sleep quality
• Promotes a better sex life
• Reduce pain

 

Why Can Regular Workout be Bad?

Workout helped a lot of people in improvising their lifestyles, achieving a healthier and better life. Regular exercise is an excellent habit if anyone can stick to it. But like all other things, excessive of anything is harmful to health, so does extreme workout. Yes, it is true that regular exercise reduces stress, makes you feel more active, but excessive exercise can do the opposite of relaxation. Earlier, we introduced you to workout miracles, but now we also want to share the dark side of physical activities with you all.

Below are the few reasons why excessive workout can be bad for you.

 

• Excessive Hurts The Heart:
  Signs of fibrosis is very common in people who opt-in for a highly intense workout for an extended period. Human heart’s tissues are not as muscular as you think due to high intense workout heart’s tissues get scarred. In the long run, due to those wear and tear of heart tissues for years, heart muscles get weaker, which can lead to some severe conditions of arrhythmia. All of this happens because the right chamber of the heart is more prone to the damage (as compared to the left one) which disrupts the heart rhythm. To avoid such situations, we will advise not to opt for a highly intense workout, to take breaks in between the exercise and follow a light cool down warm-up.
• Can Lead To Body Perception Disorder:
  It is a psychological disorder in which an individual stays excessively concerned about a perceived defect in his/her physical features like waistline is not thin enough, thigh shape is too broad, arm size is too small, etc. In such conditions, people often see defects in themselves or their physical appearance even when there’s none and tries harder than needed to “repair the defects”. Usually, this stage appears in early adulthood or adolescence, but if not dealt on time, then it can stay with you forever. Such people remain very much conscious about how they look and hardly experience workout miracles in their body. If such people don’t get time to work out or if their physical appearance is not as they desire, then this can lead to some severe issues in them like depression, social phobia, anxiety. It is not easy for such people to love themselves.
• Excessive workout can befriend Diabetes:
  Mostly, excessive exercise increases the risk of type-2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body doesn’t produce enough insulin to process the glucose in the body due to which glucose levels increases in the body. In most of the people, moderate workout lowers the level of glucose and can help in reducing diabetes. But excessive or high intense workout do the opposite of moderate workout miracles. It raises the surge of sugar consumption which not only increases the sugar addiction in people but can also damage the blood vessels and nerves in the long run.
• You Can Get Addictive:
  Due to regular exercise, the body produces endorphins to block the pain, anxiety and give a sense of happiness. Endorphins are the hormones produced by the pituitary gland, which are chemically similar to the drug morphine. That is why regular exercise can be psychologically addictive for people like athletes. But if such people don’t work out for some days, or even miss a single task, then it can lead to severe anxiety, stress and even depression.
• Can Hurt Your Love Ones:
  Exercising every day is a good idea but spending lots of hours in gyms or workout can leave your loved ones neglected. For many people who give solo importance to their workout and not to their loved one’s exercise became a reason for their separation from their families. To avoid such situations, we will advise you to include your partners with your workout routines or spend a little time exercising.
• Exercise Causes inflammation:
  During workout oxygen utilization increases upto 10-20 times more than the average state due to which production of free radicals increases. In the long run, due to these free radicals production muscles get damaged by oxidative. Oxidative damages the genes, membrane. It also damages cellular proteins. Although in a short time, the human body can build antioxidant free-radical defence system but only in the case of moderate regular workout.

 

Myths And Facts about Working Out:

Myth: Sweat will eliminate toxins from your body

Fact: Well, throwing out toxins from our body is our kidneys and liver’s job to do. Kidney and liver remove far more toxins from our bodies than any other gland can. And sweating certainly doesn’t remove toxins from our body. When the body gets too hot, it releases water that’s sweating. Water on the skin evaporates by leaving a cool sensation. Sweat contains 99% water. Sweating is a natural phenomenon to cool down your body. Sweating dehydrates your body, which means to hydrate it again. So we sweat, to regulate our body temperature.

Myth: Working Out On Empty Stomach Helps Weight Loss

Fact: It is partially correct. The reason behind this is blood sugar levels, and glucose gets low on an empty stomach due to which our body doesn’t have the energy to work out. On an empty stomach, our body turns to the fat of our body as a source of energy. If energy from a second source diminishes then, it will turn to the third source of energy, which is muscle. Because of this very reason, it is not recommended to workout on an empty stomach, but this is not a quick process. To avoid this situation, either limit your exercise to 30-45 minutes or if you are opting in for an intense workout, eat something light before your workout.

Myth: Stretching prevents injuries

Fact: It is the most common myth among people that stretching prevents injuries; in an event it’ll do the opposite of it. Stretching elongates the muscles beyond the relaxing length, which ultimately helps your muscles to relax, which is the opposite of what you want just before the workout. Instead, a warm-up exercise is a better option before a proper workout, which will also help to increase the blood flow to your muscles.

Myth: The more you Sweat, The More Fat You’ll Lose

Fact: As we said earlier as well sweating is a way to regulate the temperature of our body. When our body gets too hot, it sweats to control the temperature. Sweat contains 99% of water, which also involves salt and urea, which evaporates quickly and leaves our body more relaxed than before. When you sweat, your body gets dehydrated, which means drinking more water to rehydrate it again.

 

Best wishes from Healthy Hearts Gurgaon!!

If you are someone who is planning to commence their journey of regular workout and don’t like to work out, at first, you might find it challenging and demanding to keep up with the plan; you are not alone. Although the challenge to follow a regular exercise routine is not entirely unjustified, we will advise you to do your research, start slow, don’t spend too many hours on the workout, take a healthy sleep and follow a healthy diet. Teaming with an excellent routine and consulting with your cardiologist can make it long term and even more successful.

It is our VISION to set benchmarks in the field of cardiology globally with healthy heart habits, through cutting edge technology, most advanced treatment protocols, and a highly acclaimed team of doctors and supporting staff.