what benefits are gained from participating in activities that promote cardiovascular fitness

Benefits of cardiovascular fitness

• 1. Improves overall health The most important benefit of aerobic exercise is that it can improve your overall health and quality of life. ...
• 2. Weight management If improving overall health isn’t enough of a benefit, aerobic exercises have also been proven to help with weight management. ...
• 3. Improves cognition ...
• 4. Improves mood ...
• 5. Improves quality of sleep ...
• 6. Improves independence with aging

Full Answer

What is one benefit gained from participation in activities promoting cardiovascular?

Frequent exercise is robustly associated with a decrease in cardiovascular mortality as well as the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Physically active individuals have lower blood pressure, higher insulin sensitivity, and a more favorable plasma lipoprotein profile.

What are the benefits you get in participating in cardiovascular fitness?

Improving your cardiovascular endurance can make it easier for you to carry out your daily tasks. It can also lessen your risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

What are 5 benefits of cardiovascular?

Benefits of aerobic exercise Improves cardiovascular conditioning. Decreases risk of heart disease. Lowers blood pressure. Increases HDL or "good" cholesterol.

What are three benefits of cardiovascular health?

Benefits of cardiogets your blood pumping.lowers your blood pressure.strengthens your immune system.improves your sleep.supports your mental health.regulates your blood sugar.contributes to a healthy weight.gives your brain a boost.

What are the six health and wellness benefits of good cardiorespiratory fitness?

The (Many) Benefits of a Cardio WorkoutBrain and joints. Cardio exercise can benefit brain and joint health. ... Skin, muscles and weight. No matter how you choose to move, being active helps increase circulation, which leads to clearer, healthier skin. ... Pancreas, lungs and blood. ... Sexual function. ... Mood. ... Sleep and energy.

What are the importance of cardiovascular endurance?

Endurance activity keeps your heart, lungs and circulatory system healthy and improves your overall fitness. As a result, people who get the recommended regular physical activity can reduce the risk of many diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Why is cardiovascular health important?

The cardiovascular system relates to your heart and the blood vessels that move blood around your body. The blood pumped through your heart supplies vital oxygen and nutrients throughout your body. Leading a healthy lifestyle is important for your heart health. This includes maintaining a healthy diet and exercising.

How does the heart respond to exercise?

During exercise, the heart is subjected to intermittent hemodynamic stresses of pressure overload, volume overload, or both. To normalize such stress and to meet the systemic demand for an increased blood supply, the heart undergoes morphological adaptation to recurrent exercise by increasing its mass, primarily through an increase in ventricular chamber wall thickness. This augmentation of heart size is primarily the result of an increase in the size of individual terminally differentiated cardiac myocytes (75). Adaptive remodeling of the heart in response to exercise typically occurs with preservation or enhancement of contractile function. This contrasts with pathologic remodeling due to chronic sustained pressure overload (e.g., during hypertension or aortic stenosis), which can proceed to a loss of contractile function and heart failure (76).

How does cardiovascular disease affect the world?

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In the United States, CVD accounts for ~600,000 deaths (25%) each year (1, 2), and after a continuous decline over the last 5 decades, its incidence is increasing again (3). Among the many risk factors that predispose to CVD development and progression, a sedentary lifestyle, characterized by consistently low levels of physical activity, is now recognized as a leading contributor to poor cardiovascular health. Conversely, regular exercise and physical activity are associated with remarkable widespread health benefits and a significantly lower CVD risk. Several long-term studies have shown that increased physical activity is associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality and may modestly increase life expectancy, an effect which is strongly linked to a decline in the risk of developing cardiovascular and respiratory diseases (4). Consistent with this notion, death rates among men and women have been found to be inversely related to cardiorespiratory fitness levels, even in the presence of other predictors of cardiovascular mortality such as smoking, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia (5). Moreover, better fitness levels in both men and women can partially reverse the elevated rates of all-cause mortality as well as CVD mortality associated with high body mass index (6, 7). Recent work from cardiovascular cohorts shows that sustained physical activity is associated with a more favorable inflammatory marker profile, decreases heart failure risk, and improves survival at 30 years follow-up in individuals with coronary artery disease (8–10).

How does the resistance arterial network adapt to exercise?

The resistance arterial vascular network also undergoes functional and structural adaptation to exercise (109). During acute exercise, small arteries and pre-capillary arterioles that supply blood to the skeletal muscles must dilate to increase blood flow through the release of vasodilatory signals (e.g., adenosine, lactate, K+, H+, CO2) from active surrounding muscle (110–112). Repeated exercise leads to an adaptive response in skeletal muscle arterioles that includes increased vascular density coupled with greater vasodilatory capacity, such that enhanced perfusion can occur after conditioning (113–116). This may be partly due to adaptation of the endothelium to the complex interplay of recurrent variations in hemodynamic stresses and vasodilatory stimuli of exercise. Endothelial synthesis of NO is greatly increased at rest and during exercise in conditioned individuals/animals (117). A similar adaptive response to exercise has also been noted in the coronary vasculature, which must dilate to meet the increased metabolic demands of the myocardium (118). Exercise-trained humans and animals demonstrate reduced myocardial blood flow at rest, which may reflect a reduction in cardiac oxygen consumption primarily as a result of lower resting heart rate (119, 120). However, a large body of evidence suggests that multiple mechanisms converge to enhance the ability of the coronary circulation to deliver a greater supply of oxygen to the conditioned myocardium during exercise. This includes structural adaptations consisting of an expansion in the density of intramyocardial arterioles and capillaries as well as enhanced microvascular collateral formation (121–124). Additionally, like skeletal muscle arterioles, coronary arterial network enhances its responsiveness to vasoactive stimuli via a number of distinct mechanisms including, but not limited to, augmentation of endothelial NO production, altered responsiveness to adrenergic stimuli, or changes in the metabolic regulation of vascular tone (125–127). In addition, some studies implicate hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-mediated vasodilation in opposing exertion-induced arterial dysfunction in overweight obese adults after a period of exercise training (128, 129), suggesting enhanced contribution of NO-independent mechanisms to improved microvascular endothelial function with exercise. Collectively, these adaptations may act to support enhanced myocardial function and increased cardiac output during repeated exercise, and increased total body oxygen demand following exercise conditioning. Further advancement of our understanding of how blood flow is improved in response to exercise could lead to novel therapeutic strategies to prevent or reverse organ failure in patients resulting from inadequate blood flow.

What causes electrical instability in the heart?

During pathologic remodeling of the heart, electrical instability can result from a lack of upregulation of key cardiac ion channel subunits associated with action potential repolarization relative to an increase in myocyte size (94). In contrast, increased myocyte size in physiological hypertrophy is associated with the upregulation of depolarizing and repolarizing currents, which may be protective against abnormal electrical signaling in the adapted heart (95, 96). For example, cardiac myocytes isolated from mice after 4 weeks of swim training were found to have elevated outward K+current densities (i.e., Ito,f, IK,slow, Iss, and IK1) and increased expression of underlying molecular component Kv and Kir subunits in parallel with increases in total protein levels (96). Interestingly, a follow up study found that while increases in K+channel subunit expression following exercise training requires PI3K, these changes occur independently of Akt1 and hypertrophy (97).

What is the effect of shear forces on skeletal muscle?

Contributing to this effect, shear forces, as well as released metabolites from active skeletal muscle during exercise, signal the production and release of nitric oxide (NO) and prostacyclin from the vascular endothelium, which promotes enhanced vasodilation via relaxation of vascular smooth muscle cells (66).

Does plaque quality affect cardiovascular risk?

In contrast, other studies report greater plaque stability due to calcification in exercisers, thus indicating that with higher levels of physical activity, plaque quality may be favorably impacted to lower the risk of cardiovascular events, despite a higher incidence of plaques and normal CAC scores (135, 136).

Does exercise increase cardiac output?

In addition to metabolic and molecular remodeling, exercise can also promote functional adaptation of the heart, which may ultimately increase cardiac output and reduce the risk of arrhythmia. Clinical studies have shown that exercise-trained individuals have improved systolic and diastolic function (85, 86), while results of studies using animal models of exercise show that endurance exercise promotes enhanced cardiomyocyte contraction-relaxation velocities and force generation (87–90). This effect of exercise on cardiomyocyte contractile function may be related to alterations in the rise and decay rates of intracellular Ca2+transients, possibly due to enhanced coupling efficiency between L-type Ca2+channel-mediated Ca2+entry and activation of subsarcolemmal ryanodine receptors (RyR; i.e., calcium-induced calcium release), and increased expression and activity of the sarcoendoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ATPase (SERCA2a) and sodium-calcium exchanger (NCX) (88, 91, 92). In addition, the sensitivity of the cardiomyocyte contractile apparatus may also become more sensitive to Ca2+, thus producing a greater force of contraction at a given [Ca2+]i, following exercise, (93). These changes may at least partially depend on upregulation of the Na+/H+antiporter and altered regulation of intracellular pH.

How does exercise affect cardiovascular health?

Well conducted long term studies have also documented the cardiovascular beneficial effects of regular exercise. Leisure time exercise reduced cardiovascular mortality during a 16 year follow up of men with high risk of coronary heart disease in the MRFIT study.42In the Honolulu Heart Study, elderly men walking more than 1.5 miles per day similarly reduced their risk of coronary disease.43Walking was associated with cardio-protection in the Nurses’ Health Study,44and moderate activity in post-menopausal women was similarly associated with a reduced risk of coronary disease in the Iowa Study.4People engaging in regular exercise have also demonstrated other CVD benefits such as decreased rate of strokes and improvement in erectile dysfunction. There is also a 3-year increase in lifespan in these groups.46

Is walking good for health?

On the other hand, health benefits of adequate physical activities like walking, swimming, cycling, or stair climbing are well documented. Regular exercise has been shown to reduce type 2 diabetes,13,14some cancers,15,16falls,17osteoporotic fractures,18and depression.19Improvements in physical function20–22and weight management23–26have also been shown. There is also an increase in cognitive function,27,28enhancement of the quality of life,29and decrease in mortality.30,31

Does physical activity help with heart disease?

Several occupational studies have shown adequate physical activity also provides extensive cardiovascular benefits .32–37Chair bound double-decker bus drivers in London have more coronary heart disease than mobile conductors working on the same buses.38Postal workers delivering mail by foot similarly have lower incidence of coronary disease than their office based colleagues.39Railroad workers and longshoremen have reduced incidence of coronary heart disease compared to those in less active occupations.40,41

Is exercise good for CVD?

It is the leading cause of death in developing and developed countries. Risk factors for CVD are consistent throughout the world, and this includes lack of physical activity. Although the benefits of leisure time physical activity for reducing CVD are irrefutable, only one in three Americans meets the minimal recommendations for activity as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control, the American College of Sports Medicine, and the AHA. Physical activity is an easy, inexpensive, and effective way to avoid CVD, and the benefits accrue, irrespective of the age at which a person initiates an exercise program. Reduced CVD burden as a result of regular exercise will not only improve the quality of life, but will increase the lifespan for millions of humans worldwide. There will also be an economic benefit to all the countries in the world with a saving of billions of health related dollars.

Is sedentary lifestyle a risk factor for cardiovascular disease?

Inactivity or a sedentary lifestyle is associated with increased cardiovascular events and premature death.10Sedentary behavior, measured by television viewing time, has been associated with adverse cardiovascular health, increased obesity, diabetes mellitus, cancer, and early death.11A review of several studies has confirmed that prolonged total sedentary time (measured objectively via accelerometer) has a deleterious relationship with cardiovascular risk factors, disease, and mortality outcomes.12

Is physical activity good for health?

Regular physical activity during leisure time has been shown to be associated with better health outcomes. The American Heart Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine all recommend regular physical activity of moderate intensity for the prevention and complementary treatment of several diseases. The therapeutic role of exercise in maintaining good health and treating diseases is not new. The benefits of physical activity date back to Susruta, a 600 BC physician in India, who prescribed exercise to patients. Hippocrates (460–377 BC) wrote “in order to remain healthy, the entire day should be devoted exclusively to ways and means of increasing one’s strength and staying healthy, and the best way to do so is through physical exercise.” Plato (427–347 BC) referred to medicine as a sister art to physical exercise while the noted ancient Greek physician Galen (129–217 AD) penned several essays on aerobic fitness and strengthening muscles. This article briefly reviews the beneficial effects of physical activity on cardiovascular diseases.

Is CVD preventable?

CVD is a largely preventable condition. Although several risk factors for CVD are non-modifiable (age, male gender, race, and family history), many others are amenable to intervention. These include elevated blood pressure, abnormal blood sugar, high cholesterol, smoking, obesity, a high fat and high calorie diet and excess stress. The AHA recommends that blood pressure be kept under 140/90, fasting blood sugar be less than 110 mg/dL, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol stay below 100 mg/dL, smoking be stopped, a body mass index of less than 25 kg/m2be maintained, and a heart healthy diet be eaten. Moderate alcohol intake (less than two drinks per day), and aspirin taken in low doses among high risk groups are also recommended for their cardiovascular benefits. Another modifiable behavior with major therapeutic implications is inactivity. The cardiovascular effects of leisure time physical activity are compelling.7,8The AHA recommends that all Americans invest in at least 30 minutes a day of physical activity on most days of the week, given its substantial health benefits; however, most healthy adults remain sedentary and fail to get an adequate amount of physical activity.9

How does exercise help the body?

These exercises improve the muscles’ ability to draw oxygen from the circulating blood. That reduces the need for the heart—a muscular organ itself—to work harder to pump more blood to the muscles, whatever your age.

Why is being physically active important?

Especially when combined with a smart diet, being physically active is an essential component for losing weight and even more important for keeping it off, Stewart says—which in turn helps optimize heart health. Being overweight puts stress on the heart and is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

How does exercise reduce the risk of diabetes?

Johns Hopkins research has shown that when combined with strength training, regular aerobic exercise such as cycling, brisk walking, or swimming can reduce the risk of developing diabetes by over 50% by allowing the muscles to better process glycogen, a fuel for energy, which when impaired, leads to excessive blood sugars, and thus diabetes.

What are some good gifts for your heart?

One of the very best gifts you can give your heart is physical activity. In fact, pairing regular exercise with a Mediterranean-style diet , maintaining a normal weight and not smoking is a great protection plan against coronary artery disease and vascular disease, Johns Hopkins research has found.

What is the best exercise for heart health?

A combination of aerobic workouts (which, depending on your fitness level, can include walking, running, swimming, and other vigorous heart-pumping exercise) and strength training (weight lifting, resistance training) is considered best for heart health.

Does exercise reduce inflammation?

With regular exercise, chronic inflammation is reduced as the body adapts to the challenge of exercise on many bodily systems. This is an important factor for reducing the adverse effects of many of the diseases just mentioned.

Why is aerobic exercise good for you?

Improves cardiovascular health. Aerobic exercise is recommended by the American Heart Association and by most doctors to people with, or at risk for, heart disease. That’s because exercise strengthens your heart and helps it more efficiently pump blood throughout the body.

How does cardio help lower blood pressure?

Cardiovascular exercise can also help lower blood pressure, and keep your arteries clear by raising “good” high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and lowering “bad” low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels in the blood.

How to help asthma?

Aerobic exercise can help people with asthma lessen both the frequency and severity of asthma attacks. You should still talk to your doctor before beginning a new exercise routine if you have asthma, however. They may recommend specific activities or precautions to help keep you safe while working out.

How long did a treadmill workout affect the immune system?

one group exercised on a treadmill for 30 minutes. another group did a burst of intense activity over 30 seconds. the last group did not exercise.

Does aerobic exercise slow down brain tissue?

Did you know that the brain starts losing tissue after you reach age 30? Scientists have uncovered that aerobic exercise may slow this loss and improve cognitive performance.

Is cardio exercise safe?

Cardiovascular exercise is recommended for most groups of people, even those who are older or who have chronic health conditions. The key is working with your doctor to find what works best for you and is safe in your particular situation.

Is aerobic exercise good for diabetes?

For example: Exercise lowers blood sugar. If you have diabetes, check your blood sugar levels before and after exercise.

Why is ballroom dancing good for cardio?

Professional ballroom dancer and certified personal trainer Leon Turetsky says that all styles of dance make for great cardio workouts since your heart rate gets challenged from executing the different moves. 2. Improves balance and strength.

Why is dance considered a physical activity?

Professional dancer Jonathan Tylicki, the director of education for AKT, a boutique fitness concept rooted in dance, says one of the reasons dance is such a great form of physical fitness is because it incorporates movements on all planes of motion and from all directions.

Why is dance important for kids?

Not only does dance allow kids to get their energy out, it’s also a great (and often safe) way for them to express themselves.

What is the best dance for people with limited mobility?

Many forms of dancing, such as ballroom, are appropriate for people with limited mobility or chronic health issues.

Is dancing good for you?

The benefits of dance encompass all areas of health, including physical, mental, and emotional. Not only does it give you a way to express yourself and have fun, but it also counts toward your cardiovascular exercise minutes for the week.

Does dancing improve memory?

But how does this happen? Well, according to some studies, scientists have found that the areas of the brain that control memory and skills, such as planning and organizing, improve with exercise like dance.

Is dancing a physical activity?

Physical. Dance is exercise, so the physical benefits of dancing will be similar to that of other cardio activities. 1. Improves cardiovascular health. The heart-pumping health benefits of dance are right in line with the Department of Health and Human Services’ physical activity guidelines. Trusted Source. for adults.