When you're tired of the same boring exercise routine in the gym, it's important to understand that there are many ways to get the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended 150 minutes of aerobic exercise each week. Look outside your gym to activities such as indoor or outdoor sports to change your routine. These sports help keep you in shape at the same time.
Aerobics in Sports
Sports provide a wide range of aerobic activity, with some sports that are heavier in running or movement, like soccer or tennis, providing more intense aerobic activity than others, like golf. However, every physical sport provides enough activity to increase the number of calories you burn per hour. To continue providing the energy needed for exercise, your body increases both your heart rate and respiratory rate to increase the supply and delivery speed of oxygen, an essential component of the energy creation process. The increased exercise of the heart and lungs helps maintain the health of both organs, increases how efficiently both can operate, and reduces your risks for both cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
Strength Training
Most sports include some form of strength training element. For some, strength exercise comes more through training and practice sessions, such as lifting weights or performing resistance exercises like situps, squats, lunges, pushups and pullups. Other sports include a strength training element through playing the sport itself, such as linemen on a football field or a track and field athlete who competes in the shot put.
Bone Growth
Not only do sports help increase muscle strength toward keeping you healthy, but many also help increase your bone strength through bone growth. Sports with heavy running or that place stress on your bones encourage an increase in bone mineral density. In fact, bone mineral density is often higher than usual in athletes, especially weightlifters, gymnasts and soccer players, according to the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. When the body senses stress being placed on a bone, it activates cells called osteoblasts, which migrate to the site of stress and increase the bone mineral density, which creates a stronger bone. This can help you maintain strong bones well into your adult years and combat common age-related bone problems such as weak bones or bone-related diseases such as osteoporosis.
Weight Loss
Sports activity often burns a substantial number of calories per hour. The more calories you burn playing sports, the greater chance you have of either creating a calorie deficit for weight loss or equalizing the ratio of calories consumed through diet and those burned through activity, resulting in weight maintenance. Since sports helps to keep you at a healthy weight, you also benefit from a reduced risk of obesity-related diseases, including heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and such forms of cancer as colon, breast and prostate cancer.
References
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Physical Activity Guidelines
- The International Platform on Sport and Development: The Health Benefits of Sport and Physical Activity
- University of New Mexico; "To Be Active or Not to Be Active?"; Len Kravitz and Robert R. Robergs
- MayoClinic: Strength Training -- Get Stronger, Leaner, Healthier
- University of Arizona: Bone Builders -- Exercise
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