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Its safe to say that everyone at one point in their life wandered about starting some sport activity. You may have been asking yourself questions like - should I go to gym ? or maybe I should join boxing club or basketball team ? Whats the point ?
No matter which specific activity you considered it will lead to same conclusion - you want to change something in your life. Some want to start exercising to lose some extra weight and others goal will be gaining weight by adding muscle. There are also those people who want to improve their overall body condition and health. In the end it doesnt matter what motivates you to begin your adventure with sport, because benefits will most likely be same or similar.
What positive changes to your life and body can happen if you start physical activity ?
Exercising is great tool to control your mood - Do you need a mood lift ? or want to safely get rid off some bad emotions ? Physical activity is an answer. Moderate exercises can easily make you feel better. When heart speeds up and your blood circulation improves you can faster flush out some stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline as well as maintain healthy level of glucose in your body. You also release muscle tension and lower excessive activity of nerves in your whole body. There is also hormonal response to any moderate physical activity, which releases hormones and neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and endorphins that make you feel better. This is one of reasons why exercising can eliminate moderate depression or anxiety on its own, without medication or even need to visit a doctor.
You will fall asleep more easily and feel more rested at the morning - Many people struggle with insomnia or feel too stimulated to sleep. The main reason for it is, because people nowadays lead mostly stationary life style. Our body is a bit outdated and didnt manage to evolve as fast as our technology and world so, we still have excessive energy that was needed to travel long distances on foot or fight with prey. By exercising you will feel more calm during your bed time and make your sleep deeper.
Weight control - As mentioned before, some people start to workout to lose some weight and others to gain it. Proper exercises like aerobic will make your weight go down faster than without it, and working out with some barbells and iron in gym makes you grow by pushing your body to hypertrophic state.
Improve your health and fight disease - Physical activity is so natural for our bodies, that lack of it may be direct cause of many health problems. Not only did scientists prove that by exercising you can prevent many conditions like stroke, heart disease or hypertension, but they found that its safest cure for many health issues. Its so effective that it may also help in some cases of cancer.
Improve your sex life - Specific exercises can improve your sex life by increasing libido, boosting energy and enhancing overall satisfaction from intercourse. It is adviced that male should use exercises like lifting and strength training to boost natural testosterone production, whereas female will get more benefits from aerobic exercises like jogging, because of increased estrogen and other hormones production.
Increased self control - Maintaining training routine, monitoring your progress and keeping eye on your diet improves your self control. You learn to be more responsible and see benefits of your actions more clearly. Once you successfully implement physical activity in your life you prove to yourself, that anything is possible as long as you dont give up and put your heart into it.
Improve your self-esteem - By achieving your own goals and feeling happy with yourself you prove your worth to yourself. You will feel healthily proud of your progression and perseverance and you will realize that you can endure a lot to gain even more.
Meet great people - no matter what discipline you choose to train, there are always other people who can help you. There are newbies as well as veterans who can help you get better and motivate you further. But the most important is that they are people that share same passion as you and most of them are eager to interact with you in positive way. Any sport is great opportunity to meet new people and have tones of fun together.
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When you should avoid working out ?
Of course there are some cases in which physical activity is not advised. Well, not every activity for sure but there are some disciplines that can cause more harm than good to some. If you struggle with serious health problems you should consider asking your doctor if sport discipline you want to get into is right for you. People who have problems with their spine and/or joints should avoid overloading their bodies with excessive weight so gym is not the best option. There are of course alternative ways of achieving what you want, for example exercises with your own body weight like calisthenics. Some people with cardiovascular disease should avoid stressing their heart too much so activities like jogging or aerobics may cause more harm than good. Good alternative is to visit swimming pool regularly and keep that activity on moderate level.Bottom line, there are many conditions in which you should not start working out without consulting your doctor, so make sure to do so if you struggle with some serious health problems or otherwise you can loose more than you gain from it.
That is the question I have been asking myself for the last ten years of my life :)