Well Beings Fitness

Need a little more motivation to start exercising?

We all know why exercise is important.  The health benefits of exercise – like better cardiovascular health, more control over your weight, more energy, better mood, etc. all serve as great motivation to begin, or continue, an exercise routine.  But maybe you need more reasons – ones you haven’t heard everywhere else – to give you additional motivation…

Following an exercise routine will bring you many benefits, even beyond all the health benefits you commonly hear from professionals. You don’t hear about these benefits of exercising very often – maybe due to the dedication required to realize them, or because of the difficulty in testing them in a lab - but some are even more tangible than the benefits you do commonly hear (do you really “feel” when your blood pressure drops or your resting pulse rate goes down?).

Some of these benefits of exercise are seldom spoken about as if almost taboo…unless you are like me, and love talking about poop.  That (poop) said, brings us to the first of these lesser known benefits of exercise to help kick-start your motivation and give you more reasons to begin an exercise routine:

1. Exercise improves your ability to poop (and your all around digestion, elimination, and regularity)

   There ain’t nothing like a good poop.  On the flip-side, constipation totally stinks (not as literally as a good poop does, though).  Constipation can result in cramps, stomach aches, bloating, and even bad breath. Healthy digestion, elimination, and regularity are important aspects of a properly functioning immune system and your overall well-being - and exercise will improve all three.

   Physical activity increases peristaltic velocity, which is a fancy way of saying “the poop’s gonna move through you quicker”. Peristalsis, or the muscle contractions and relaxations that move contents through the digestive tract, is aided by exercise in at least two ways:

   • the extra gravitational forces you subject your body to during exercise (instead of subjecting the couch to these forces) simply make the job of peristalsis easier.  Gravity is pulling your poop downward – the same general direction peristalsis is moving digestive contents from your food entrance to your food exit.
   • Exercise increases your body’s production of nitric oxide, a versatile gas involved in the cardiovascular benefits of exercise as well as another seldom heard benefit of exercise in this list.   In the context of peristalsis, nitric oxide aids in the relaxation of smooth muscle of the digestive tract, which is a key component to peristalsis keeping things moving.

   Exercise will also improve your digestion and elimination through its action on the lymphatic system - which is responsible for transporting digested fats, metabolic waste, and important immune-system components throughout the body.  The lymphatic system doesn’t have a “pump” to circulate contents through it like the heart does for the cardiovascular system, so it relies heavily on skeletal muscle movement for circulation.  This is why many lymph nodes are located at major joint junctions, like the arm-pits or groin, where they can take advantage of pressure imparted by muscle movement to help push lymph fluid through the body.   Less exercise and less movement means less lymphatic circulation, which means poorer metabolism and poorer immune function.

2. Exercise increases your tolerance to discomfort, effort, and pain.

   You know that lazy voice in your head that curses when it notices the moving sidewalk at the airport is broken?  The one that groans when it reaches the bottom of the stairs to your friend’s 4th floor apartment without an elevator?  That voice gets quieter the more you exercise.

   The dedicated exerciser is no stranger to breaking a sweat or convincing themselves to keep going when their lazy inner-voice begs them to stop.  They know how to push through when things get difficult or uncomfortable, and that breaking a sweat really isn’t that bad.  This carries over to your everyday life.  Getting up off of a deep, low sofa doesn’t require a grunting effort after you’ve been doing sets of squats for a few weeks.  Driving around the mall parking lot for an hour looking for a closer spot is no longer worth it after you can run a 5k in under 30 minutes.

   Hopefully it never comes down to it, but your ability to handle physical effort could save your life.  I once had to walk downstairs from the 15th floor of a building during a fire drill.  I passed by multiple people who had to rest on the landings because they couldn’t handle walking down that many flights of stairs.  Lucky for them it was a drill, but they wouldn’t have had a problem with it if they had been using the stair-climber at the gym on a regular basis.

3. Exercise increases incidence of friendship and camaraderie

   Need more friends?  Just start exercising and be active.

   I’ve made more friends at the corporate gym I belong to than actually at work with the people I interact with for the majority of the day.  The reason?  I always share at least one important aspect of my life in common with people down at the gym – a “fitness mindset” or general active lifestyle.Sharing something in common like this with others brings an instant rapport and mutual respect, making it easier to build friendships.

   I still find it amazing how friendly, out-going, and generally happy people are at the recreational sport leagues, trail-running events, and even unorganized sporting activities I participate in.  Even the people you meet outside of the gym, event, or game who share your fitness mindset will be easier to strike up a conversation with since you have something in common to talk about.

   Your existing friends will like you better once you are consistently exercising too.  Your better overall mood will make them enjoy hanging out with you more, and I’m sure they would feel more secure knowing you could carry them out of a burning building rather than having to rest after going down each flight of stairs from carrying just your own weight.  I may have high standards, but my friends don’t make the cut unless they are at least able to drag my lifeless body down 3 flights of stairs without needing a rest.

4. Exercise Improves Libido and Sexual Experience

   If you’re not gettin’ any, wanting more sex might not be a good thing, but for many couples an increase in libido as a result of exercise could be the ticket to improving a struggling relationship, or making an already great relationship even better.

   Exercise increases testosterone production, which is essential to the sexual health of both men AND women.

   Nitric oxide is involved in the brain signaling pathways related to libido and the circulation of blood to both the male and female sexual organs.  That means the boost in nitric oxide production from exercise is going to result in more desire for sex, better performance during sex, AND increased pleasure obtained from sex.

   If you need an explanation on how better circulation to the sexual organs equates to better performance and increased pleasure, look it up yourself and enjoy all the creepy ads containing horny old people the Internet will subject you to.  I’m leaving the explanation out to keep this post from getting too dirty - and in hopes that someone will come across a picture of their grandparents.

There you have it – 4 more great reasons to begin an exercise program.  If you still need more motivation, I suggest you attach a stick to your head and tie a doughnut to the end of it, just out of your reach.  Don’t stop running until you catch the doughnut.

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