Ten benefits of aerobic exercise

Aerobics is a kind of exercise (also called cardio) that requires our larger muscle systems to move repeatedly over a period of time. As they work harder, they need a greater supply of energy. Therefore you start to breathe more deeply, your heart pumps faster, and your capillaries widen so that they can carry more oxygen to the muscles and carry more waste products away. A program of aerobic exercise leads to greater overall fitness.

The best aerobic fitness comes from a workout plan in which you exercise without interruption for 20 minutes to an hour three to five times every week. You can still benefit your heart without a formal exercise routine provided that you accumulate half an hour of moderately intense activity every day of the week.

Today, both obesity and heart disease are rampant. Proper eating and sustained physical activity can reduce the incidence and risks of both conditions. Aerobic fitness is one key component of good health. Several different options exist, including treadmills and similar machines, exercise videos, or just taking regular brisk walks. Anyone can find a way to introduce aerobics to his or her life. Why should you? Let me count the ways.

1. Cardio exercise will strengthen your heart so it can pump more efficiently. As the heart grows stronger, it can pump more blood with each stroke. Your resting heart rate will become slower. Aerobics will also help you breathe more deeply.

2. By increasing aerobic fitness, you will reduce fatigue and increase stamina. Even though strenuous, or even moderate, exercise makes you tired immediately, your body rebuilds the muscles you have challenged. As you become more fit, your new level of activity will become easier. At that point, you can challenge yourself to do more, and the cycle of renewed energy continues.

3. Exercise helps balance and control the cholesterol in your blood. Aerobics boosts HDL (the good cholesterol) and reduces LDL (the bad cholesterol). It therefore keeps your arteries clear of plaque buildup.

4. You can lose weight and keep it off. Dietary change takes weight off--aerobic exercise keeps it off. Your muscles use oxygen to burn fat and carbohydrates. Fat (9 calories per gram) gives your muscles more power than carbohydrate (4 calories per gram). Your cells need more oxygen to burn fat, but if you work your body hard enough to get rid of all the carbs, it will have to burn fat to keep working. The increased oxygen it gets from cardio fitness enables it to do so. Accumulations of unburned fat explain why you need to lose weight in the first place!

5. You will reduce your risk of contracting such health conditions as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, insulin resistance, diabetes, or obesity. Weight-bearing aerobic exercise (walking, for example)  likewise reduces your risk of osteoporosis. There is also evidence that aerobics reduce the risk of some cancers, specifically colon cancer and breast cancer.

6. If you have some kind of chronic condition such as any of the ones listed above, aerobic exercise can keep them under better control, or perhaps even reverse them. For example, sedentary people taking statins and other expensive drugs who get serious about aerobics may eventually have their doses reduced or even stop taking them entirely.

7. Cardio fitness will give your immune system a boost. That means, among other things, that aerobics will enable your body to ward off colds and the flu.

8. You will find yourself generally in a better mood with good exercise and fitness, less likely to suffer intensely from anxiety or depression. Reduction of these negative moods, along with reduction in fatigue, probably explains why aerobics reduces cancer risk and helps cancer treatment.

9. As you grow older, you will stay active and independent longer. Not only will your muscles and joints benefit from a habit of good aerobic exercise, but so will your mind. Aerobics is one of the best things you can do to protect yourself from the epidemic of Alzheimer's disease that experts say looms on the horizon.

10. You will live longer. That does not simply mean that you will have more candles on your very last birthday cake if you exercise diligently. It also means that aerobics will help you be more lively during your extra years.

The Mayo Clinic offers a lot more information about the benefit of aerobic exercise.