Exercise is so much more than a weight loss tool

This article is written by Rob Maxwell, M.A. Exercise Physiology, CSCS and ACSM CPT from www.fittothemax.net. Follow him on Twitter.

I have been working in the fitness industry for 25 years.

I started as a PT tech while working on my master’s degree in Exercise Physiology.

I had already earned a bachelor's degree in Psychology at that time. I originally thought that I was going to make a career in psychology.

I found that my true passion was fitness. The fact is that I have still made a career out of psychology as well.

Physiology and psychology go together. The body and the mind are connected. When you add the spiritual component, you have complete wellness.

Body, mind and spirit are combined to form complete wellness.

After working as a PT tech, I started my own personal training business. That was in 1994.

In these 25 years I’ve found that the toughest client to work with is a weight loss client.

It’s not because I struggle with what they need to do. It is because many don’t understand that most weight loss, if not all of it, is going to come from diet.

Exercise is going to serve a different role for them. That’s a hard message for many weight loss clients to grasp.

I believe that I use my psychology background almost as much as I use my physiology education.

For the most part people know they need to exercise and they know they should, most likely, eat better.

There are exaggerated and poor exercise programs out there that confuse people and there are certainly bogus, money making diet programs on the market.

You can get your hands on a good exercise program and diet information if you look. Yet, people aren’t doing it. This is a psychological decision.

Why is the choice to exercise not being made more often?

Less than a quarter of Americans exercise regularly

Depending on which study you look at, only one in seven people are on a sustainable exercise program.

In another more favorable study only one in four are exercising enough.

At the very best, 25% of the United States is exercising enough to get benefits.

Why is that? What gives?

I believe that I have at least part of the reason why. I will get into that below, but let that statistic set in.

We shouldn’t bash people for not exercising.

I’m in the industry. I believe we in the fitness industry have sent out many mixed messages and I don’t think we do a good enough job of explaining why exercise is so important.

If we explain the why, the do is more doable.

How much exercise do you need?

The American College of Sports Medicine, the American Heart Association and the World Health Organization all state that you should exercise for 150 minutes a week to get the health benefits of a fitness program.

That number equals 21 minutes per day.

Yet, as you saw above, we are not getting enough exercise as far as the nation goes.

I’m sure the rest of the world is having the same experience - just not to the extent of the United States.

Is 21 minutes of exercise every day too hard to do? I want people to reach this goal because I know that it is worth it.

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Why don’t we exercise enough?

1. We reduce exercise to a weight loss tactic

2. We don't know the real benefits of exercise

3. People make exercise too complicated

I believe that there are three main reasons why we don't exercise enough as a nation.

The first is reason is that we use exercise as a weight loss tool.

Secondly, we don't understand all of the benefits of exercise outside of weight loss (superficial motivation).

The third reason is that we make exercise programs too complicated.

Exercising for weight loss reduces that chance that we will stick to it

The best way to lose weight is through diet. It always has been this way - and it always will be this way.

When I refer to diet, I mean cutting back on how much you eat when you want to lose weight.

It’s all about calories.

Energy (which is calories) consumed must be less than energy used to lose weight.

Yes, exercise can help. The energy consumed part is exercise and other non-exercise activities (NEAT).

Exercise on its own is not enough to lose weight. Exercise usually becomes a bad excuse for eating too much.

If you run one mile, jog one mile, or walk one mile you are going to burn about 100 calories. If you eat a banana afterwards (which takes 1 minute), you just put those calories back.

You can’t keep up. You cannot outrun a poor diet.

I’ve seen marathon runners that I coach gain weight while running 50-80 miles weekly for this very reason.

I’ve seen many people drop a significant amount of weight while never breaking a sweat. It's because they understand the role of diet in the weight loss process.

It’s about cutting calories. If we eat too much food, we will gain weight.

I don’t have the space here to go over all the benefits of choosing good foods to eat because that’s not the point of this article.

The point is that we lose weight from controlling our energy input and output.

The output part, exercise, is limited in its return on investment (regarding weight loss).

Bodybuilders know how to lose weight through diet

Another example I’ll pull from is bodybuilding.

I have competed and work with many people that have done physique competitions.

The workout program does not change that much when it comes to prepping for a show. Bodybuilders do add some more cardio-respiratory exercises into their program, but the big change comes from diet.

The diet becomes more and more critical depending on how much fat the athlete must lose.

Bodybuilders know that weight loss comes from diet - and they exercise a lot! They can lose a lot of fat in a short period of time because they understand this basic principle.

I’m more of a believer in staying close to your best state most of the time and just cutting a little bit when you need to.

If the athlete does that, the diet doesn’t have to be as low in calories. They don’t need to diet as long.

If they allow for too much weight gain during the year, the diet will be stricter and for a longer period.

The point is that body builders have known this forever. When they plan a show, they don’t say “time to start training”. They say, “Time to start dieting”.

Weight loss is about food intake. The professionals know this.

Exercise is a great way to avoid regaining the weight. Weight regain is a major problem with those that struggle with weight loss.

Here is the problem makes people stop exercising: Many people start exercising to lose weight.

Can you guess why they stop?

You got it - they don’t lose weight.

In some cases, people gain weight because they start strength training. Strength training adds muscle. This is a good thing because muscle increases your metabolism (the amount of calories that you burn throughout the day).

People don't see it this way. We focus so much on the scale that we don't realize that we are burning fat.

Commercials have convinced us that the way to weight loss is by wearing a fancy leotard and dancing to music.

If people started a diet program along with the exercise program, they would lose weight. Some are wise enough (or get the right advice) to combine the two.

I want people to exercise for all the true benefits of exercise - and I mean the actual benefits of exercise on its own.

You can absolutely become fit and gain many benefits from exercise - even if you don’t lose a pound.

People don't exercise because they don't understand the benefits of exercise

Exercise is so much more than weight loss.

People who exercise - regardless of weight - are healthier and live longer. There are many studies that support this.

You reduce your risk for chronic diseases and you will live a healthier life if you exercise - even if it is for the minimum amount of 21 minutes each day.

Exercise for the sake of health.

Do I really need to go on? There are more benefits, but let that sink in.

Many people attempt to lose weight for those reasons. Losing weight absolutely lowers disease risk as well.

Exercising, even if you don’t lose weight, has these benefits too.

Trainees that understand this will to stick to exercise and see it for themselves.

The ones that don’t understand this, and only want to lose weight, will often step away from exercise before they experience the real benefits.

You will see that 21 minutes of daily exercise is really worth it if you let this sink in.

Is more exercise better? Yes it can be, but that’s not the idea right now.

We tend to run ahead of ourselves and burn out before we establish a proper routine.

We can see the benefits of exercise from doing as little as 150 minutes a week.

That is very worth it to me.

Weight loss isn't the best motivation.

The other benefits of exercise outside of lowering risk for chronic diseases are many.

Exercise increases bone density. Exercise strengthens your heart so that you won’t be as winded during your daily activities.

Exercise adds muscle tone. Who doesn’t still want to look good in their tank top or t-shirt? Exercise makes you stronger. Exercise makes you better at all your ADL’s (activities of daily living).

Exercise makes you better at sports if you play any. Exercise improves your posture. Proper strength exercise prevents injury.

Exercise builds your confidence and self-esteem. Exercise lifts your mood. Endorphins are natural pain killers. They are released when you start exercising. Exercise improves your social life when you do it with others.

I have had so many clients and friends make amazing friendships from picking up a sport or joining an exercise group.

Benefits of exercise

1. Lowers risk for chronic disease

2. Increases bone density

3. Strengthens the heart

4. You won't be winded when you do something

5. Exercise adds muscle tone

6. Improves appearance

7. Makes you stronger

8. Increases motivation

9. Makes you better at everything else that you do

10. Improves mental performance

11. Improves physical skills

12. Improves posture

13. Prevents injury

14. Builds confidence and self esteem

15. Gives you a sense of achievement

16. Lifts your mood

17. Reduces pain

18. Improves your social life

Fitness professionals make it too complicated

We need to KISS.

We really need to Keep It Simple, Stupid.

The final major reason why people aren’t doing the minimum amount of exercise to help them is because we experts have made it too complicated.

We’ve tried to sell it as a certain way that it must be done.

You just must move to get the health benefits of exercise.

If we can get everyone in this country to move the minimal amount of time each day, we would be so much healthier as a nation and as a global population.

I believe that fitness professionals, along with the other reasons mentioned above, have an caused an issue in getting people to move more because of a paralysis of analysis where people don’t do enough because they don’t know what to do.

People don't exercise enough because they are bombarded with the technicalities of how to do it.

Just move. It's that simple.

I’m an exercise physiologist. I have all the top certifications and I’m telling you that many people in my field and in the medical field over-complicate exercise.

Just move. Walk, run, bike, skip, lift, swim, and/or play sports. Just move your body.

Don't let things like your maximal heart rate make exercise too complicated

I have used target heart rates for clients for their cardio-respiratory exercise prescription.

For the most part, they are overrated.

They serve a purpose in some cases but for the health benefits of exercise they are very unnecessary.

Let me give you some facts about heart rate calculations.

There is a standard deviation of age predicated maximum heart rate and actual maximal heart rate

The formula for age predicted maximum heart rate is 220 minus age. You might see a poster of this hung up on the wall at a gym.

You derive a maximal heart rate from this formula.

If you are 40 years old, then 220-40 equals 180. If you are going to exercise at 80% of that (a common prescription) then your target heart rate is 144.

There is a potential problem with this. There is a standard deviation of 30 beats when using the estimated maximal heart rate formula.

This means that this 40 year old’s heart rate could be anywhere from 165 to 195.

That really throws off the 80% heart rate!

This standard deviation now makes the 80% either 132 or 156 which is a 24-beat swing. You might as well not track it.

Keep it simple.

There is a place for these kinds of prescriptions, but I believe they often cause more harm than good.

We’ve known a lot of this stuff for 50 years, so why aren’t people exercising more?

We’ve made it more complicated than it must be. I can take this all the way to the elites as well.

Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile in 1954.

Now, the record is about 15 seconds faster.

15 seconds is a lot when you are racing the mile, but think about that.

With all the training and knowledge that we now have access to, we’ve only shaved 15 seconds in 64 years.

He seemed to be doing well with not as many formulas and prescriptions. I can go on and on with examples.

Don’t get me wrong; shaving just milliseconds in competition is huge. Why aren't our workout formula's getting people to move more often?

The added technicality hasn't helped us that much because it has given us more to calculate.

We have over-prescribed exercise.

I don’t think that we need to over-prescribe or over-plan a simple habit.

I believe that if we just get out there and do it; our body will let us know how to progress.

We get the opposite effect of what we want when we over plan and over prescribe something as simple as exercise.

Just move. Just do it.

Just get up and move. That's all.

Even a small amount of exercise is worth it

Exercise is worth it.

We don’t have to do as much as we might have been led to believe - and we don’t have to go as hard.

We benefit in so many ways from doing it.

It’s not about losing weight. It’s not about performing a complicated program. It’s about moving.

When we exercise, we become healthier. The science bears this out.

Give it a try and let the endorphins get you through until you start seeing the benefits.

Once you do, I hope that you end up joining the top 25% of the world that realize how much it helps them.

This article is written by Rob Maxwell, M.A. Exercise Physiology, CSCS and ACSM CPT from www.fittothemax.net. Follow him on Twitter.

How mental stress affects muscle growth

Do stress levels at work or home affect muscle growth? Absolutely - but there are things that you can do about it.

Cortisol

You've probably heard of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is released as a response to stress and one of its primary roles is to give your body the energy it needs to fight off or escape a potential threat. Cortisol stimulates energy production and immune response. Cortisol levels are naturally higher in the morning and taper off throughout the day until they reach their lowest before bed time and during sleep. This makes sure that you have the energy that you need throughout the day while ensuring that you can get the recovery that you need at night. People with cortisol levels that are too low have constant fatigue and vulnerable immune systems. Healthy cortisol levels are good for you, but too much is not good either. Your body needs periods of low stress (and lowered cortisol) to calm down and recover. Thinking about stressful things at night can increase cortisol levels, which puts your body into a fight-or-flight response when it needs to start the recovery process instead.

One of the benefits of regular exercise is that it teaches the body to deal with stress. Exercise improves the way that cortisol is used by providing an outlet for the energy that cortisol creates. It also ensures that we don't experience the negative effects of too much cortisol production. Exercise tricks our bodies into thinking that a potentially harmful (or stressful) situation is over and that it can go back into rest and recovery mode. Too much exercise, though, can elevate cortisol levels. Physical stress (or physical exertion) can also trigger the release of cortisol. In order to recover sufficiently, our bodies need periods of low stress to enter its rest mode. If mental stress from work and physical stress from exercise releases more cortisol than what your body can recover from, your body will spend too much time in overdrive and too little time in recovery. Exercise can help you to deal with mental stress, but only to a certain point until it becomes too much. How do you make sure that you aren't stressing more than what your body can handle? Make sure that you balance out overall stressful situations with relaxing ones. Mental tranquility triggers speedy physical recovery. There is nothing wrong with feeling a little stress every now and then, but you need to make sure that you make time to feel relaxed. You can do this by spending time with a loved one, enjoying a hobby or through positive reflection. Doing these things at night will increase sleep quality.

Tension

Tension is one of the ways that cortisol affects muscle tissue. Cortisol tenses muscles so that they are primed for action. In nature, this would help you to make the fast movements that you need to eat (catch prey) or avoid being eaten. Think of the muscular tension as your muscles' version of 'standby mode'. As great as this is for action, it's not so great for recovery. Your muscles need to get out of 'standby mode' and enter 'rest mode' to grow. Tensed muscles cannot recover as well and relaxed muscles. If mental stress increases muscular tension, they will take longer to recover from exercise.

Exercise can decrease tension caused by stress, but prolonged physical stimulus and increased tension from non-exercise stress without sufficient relaxation can severely decrease the amount of optimal recovery time that your muscles need. If you feel like your muscles are negatively affected by stress, here are 7 ways to decrease the effects of stress from work. If work stress creates muscular tension, exercising after work will release the tension and give you the evening and night's sleep to recover. Applying heat (like through a hot bath or sitting in the sauna), stretching regularly, massage and aromatherapy are great ways to relieve tension and speed up muscle recovery.

Poor decisions

Stress can also negatively impact muscle growth by negatively impacting the decisions that you make. Stress can cause us to make unhealthy decisions in an attempt to cope with that stress. Drinking alcohol negatively affects muscle growth, and so does smoking. Irregular sleeping habits and erratic diet choices are other ways that our attempts to cope with stress can lead to decisions that hamper muscle growth.

In the above ways, mental stress can have an indirectly negative affect on muscle growth. Some stress is not too bad, but when you stress more than you relax; you risk sacrificing muscle because of it. Stay Strong!

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Comprehensive List of Over 100 Exercise Benefits

There are so many lists of exercise benefits out there. Some focus on disease prevention while others focus on physical or mental aspects. I've composed a list containing so many benefits that you will never ever need another benefits list, ever again!

Anti-Aging Benefits

Exercise not only slows the aging process and fights off the illnesses that come with it, but it also makes you look a lot younger than you are and gives you the kind of energy and resilience that some youngsters don't even have. Don't believe me? Check out the studies that prove how exercise fights the aging process.

Exercise keeps you young by:

1. Preventing illness and diseases like cancer, obesity, and heart and organ failure. Refer to the link above.

2. Keeps you mentally capable (read link above to see how exercise increases the amount of neurons in your brain).

3. Increases physical ability and increases energy leaves.

4. Teaches and reinforces your body's ability to bounce back (physical resilience).

Benefits of Sweating and Increased Body Temperature

Sweating is extremely good for you. It detoxifies the body, is good for your skin and decreases water retention. Read more about how sweating makes you healthier.

Indirect benefits of exercise by way of sweating:

5. Detoxifies your body of toxins and other impurities. Up to 30% of bodily toxins can be released from sweat.

6. Increases kidney and liver function, since sweating reduces the load of toxins that your filtration systems have to deal with.

7. Exercise benefits your skin as it opens up pores; allowing nutrients to reach the skin and waste products to be eliminated. Sweating can add radiance to skin.

8. It decreases water retention. Sweating allows your body to get rid of excess water under the skin.

9. Increased body temperature creates an environment where many kinds of germs cannot survive, killing them off. This is why your body gets so hot during a fever: to kill off the germs in your body.

10. The increased body temperature also increases your body's white blood cells. These cells fight off infection and disease.

11. Increased body temperature opens up your blood vessels and tissues; and increases blood flow. This allows for easier flowing of nutrients, better communications throughout your body and elimination of all the bad stuff.

 This must be the reason why people love steam rooms.

Physical Benefits of Exercise

Oxford Academy has a very interesting article about the wonderful relationship between exercise and aging. This compilation of so many accredited studies lists so many physical benefits of exercise.

Physical Benefits of Exercise

12. Exercise increases aerobic capacity: the ability for your body to physically perform for longer periods of time without getting tired.

13. It also decreases heart rate and blood pressure when you exert yourself. You will do things with less effort and your body will not need as much time, energy or nutrients to recover.

14. Exercise increases tissue elasticity. You will have a greater range of motion, your muscles will be able to move and stretch more and your other tissues will stay almost as elastic as they were when you were younger.

15. Your muscular endurance, strength and power will improve. You will be physically stronger than what you would be if you did not exercise regularly.

16. Motor coordination improves. You will have a better mind-to-body connection and have better mental control over your body.

17. Neural reaction time will get shorter. You will be able to react quicker and won't have to think too much before making complicated movements.

18. Enzyme capacity and mitochondrial volume increases, meaning that your body will become better at making energy more efficiently.

19. Walk speed, cadence, stability and step length will increase. You will have an easier time getting around wherever you go and this benefit will continue long into old age.

20. Resting heart rate decreases. This means that when you are not being physically active, your body will be less stressed and will require less energy to function. Expending energy during exercise makes you need less energy to survive.

21. Maximal cardiac output increases, so that your heart is able to do more for your body and is stronger at getting blood where it needs to be.

22. Endothelial reactivity increases. The inner lining of blood vessels can expand and contract more easily.

23. Muscle blood flow increases. This makes your muscles healthier and more efficient, since they can receive nutrients and expel waste products better.

24. Capillary density increases. Your lungs will be able to take in more oxygen and release more carbon dioxide with every breath you take.

25. Vascular insulin sensitivity increases. You can turn sugar into glycogen (energy stored in muscle) better, so your blood won't have too much sugar and your body will have the energy it needs for longer periods of time.

26. Plasma volume increases. Plasma is the liquid that carries blood cells. With more blood plasma, your blood has more space to perform its functions.

27. Total energy expenditure increases. Fat is burned and the body learns to work more efficiently at almost all bodily functions.

28. Thermionic effects of meals increase. This means that your body will spend more energy in processing food to make sure that it is used and processed in the best way it can.

29. Total body water increases. Your body accumulates water in the right places so that you are better hydrated and can function better.

30. Potassium, nitrogen and calcium levels are raised in your body. This ensures even further stability and order in everyday bodily processes.

31. Protein synthesis rate and amino acid uptake into muscles increase. Nitrogen retention and protein turnover also rises. This ensures that your body becomes better at rebuilding and maintaining itself.

32. Gastrointestinal transit time increases. Your body takes more time to absorb precious nutrients from food instead of letting good nutrients go. Also, these nutrients are stored properly and not entirely converted into fat.

33. Glycogen storage capacity increases, allowing muscles to store more energy and take more sugar out of the blood stream.

34. Bad cholesterol levels decrease.

35. Good cholesterol levels are raised and protected.

36. Hormonal and sympathetic nervous system responses to stress stimuli are decreased. You will be able to handle stress better, with less negative consequences.

Emotional Benefits of Exercise

Science Direct has a study on regular exercise, anxiety, depression and personality.
It found that regular physical exertion was both the cause and result of improved extroversion and sensation seeking personalities. It also found that physical activity lowered feelings of neuroticism, anxiety and depression.

37. People who exercise regularly are more outgoing than people who don't.

38. They also have less difficulty with directing attention to things other than themselves without feeling alienated.

39. Introverts who exercise regularly are better able to cope with situations where they have to perform extroverted activities.

40. These people are more able to explore environments that they are not familiar with and can function as working parts of environments that they are not in total control of (this is also true for forms of exercise that does not incorporate teams sports elements).

41. Exercise boosts your confidence, both in the short and long term.

42. Exercise makes people feel happier immediately after the activity. The feeling of happiness carries over into the rest of daily life.

43. It also makes people feel a sense of accomplishment. This is a very important feeling according to Psychology Today.

44. Self-esteem increases with exercise.

45. People who partake in manual exertion handle situations that are difficult better than people who don't.

46. Surprisingly, people who train more often are less selfish than people who don't, on average.

47. Exercise increases feelings of self-worth and decreases the need to inflate self-importance onto others.

48. The fitter people are, the better they are (on average) at interacting with other people. This includes people that they don't know.

49. According to the above study, there was a strong correlation between people who exercised more and their appetite for activities that make them happy.

50. Exercise immediately lowered feelings of anxiety.

51. Long-term workouts decrease susceptibility to anxiety in the first place.

52. Exercise is rated as one the best ways to deal with depression.

53. It lowered the likelihood for people to by moody. It significantly lowers feelings of anger and aggression.

54. People who work out more often also worry less and are not as susceptible to fear, compared to people who do not exercise.

55. They also show higher levels of tolerance before experiencing feelings of frustration.

56. Physical activity lowered the negative effects and onset of guilt.

57. People who were more active reported less feelings of loneliness.

58. They also have a far lower vulnerability or tendency towards negative and addictive behaviors.

59. Exercise has been successfully used as a successful treatment of addictive recovery.

60. Eating disorders prevailed less within communities who were more active. These disorders were also more controllable in patients who started new exercise regimes.

61. The more a person exercises, the more likely that that person will engage in other healthy habits. This includes following the right diet, self-improvement and following balanced lifestyles. People are more able to successfully follow a healthy eating plan when it is coupled with a good exercise routine.
62. People who are physically fit report having more zest for life and are more positive towards life in general.
63. The more often people did activities that involved a level of physical exertion, the less they complained about a variety of issues.

Financial, Career, Academic and Learning Benefits

Exercise makes you more productive. Studies have found that exercise benefits both academic and career objectives.

64. Exercise increases learning ability and memory, allowing people to learn at faster rates.

65. Since physical activity provides blood flow to the brain and a healthy distraction during periods of learning, it is the perfect way to store information that is learned and log it into cognitive memory. This allows for more information which is learned to be stored and less information to be lost or forgotten.

66. People who work out more often get sick less and take less sick days off from work.

67. They also have more energy at work and are more productive.

68. They therefore get promoted more often and climb their respective career ladders faster than their counterparts who don't exercise.

69. These people also showed more positivity towards the line of work that they were involved in.

Mental Benefits of Physical Activity

A study at www.karger.com investigates the connection between mental health and exercise. If finds multiple mental benefits and suggests reasons why exertion improves brain function.

70. Exercise can be effectively used to assist treatment for neuropsychiatric disorders, which affect the brain and nervous system. Since it assists with treatment, it plays a role in prevention.

71. It helps to relieve symptoms of cognitive impairment.

72. It helps to delay the onset of neurodegenerative processes.

73. Physical movement reduces the harmful effects of stresses that could negatively affect the brain.

74. Exercise triggers neurotransmitter release, increasing the flowing of brain movement and activity.

75. Exercise can be neurotrophic, allowing for neurogenesis (growth of nervous tissue).

76.  It increases cerebral blood flow, or blood flow within the brain.

77. Exercise protects the brain from the effects of aging and degeneration, and ensures successful brain function.

78. Inactivity is the biggest risk factor for many diseases that affect the brain and other important organs.

79. Exercise can delay and soften the effects of Alzheimer's disease, improving quality of life.

80. Since physical activity is closely related to survival, it teaches the body to 'survive' for longer than those who lead sedentary lives.

81. Brain plasticity increases with exercise. Plasticity refers to the brains ability to change and reorganize itself as it needs to.

82. There is an inverse relationship between exercise and depression in the elderly. On average, one in five elderly people are depressed.

83. Studies show a strong link between physical exertion and the reduced onset of dementia.

84. It reduces the effects of dementia for people who already have it.

85. Half an hour of exercise a day greatly decreased the number of hospitalizations of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

86. It also significantly improved the mood of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

87. Exercise has shown a protective effect against Parkinson's disease.

88. It also reduced the symptoms of Parkinson's in patients who already had the disease.

Social Benefits

www.livestrong.com has an interesting article about how regular physical activity improves your social performance.

89. Exercise improves confidence, makes you feel better, improves self-esteem and reduces anxiety. These effects make you more able to approach others and start new friendships.

90. These effects also improve your ability to be honest and reach out to people when you need to. You will therefore be less limited by your own inhibitions when it comes to communicating with other people.

91. Exercising frequently at the gym at the same time increases the chances of you getting to know the people who gym at the same time and place. See how to makes friends at the gym.

92. Physical activity that involves team sports teach participants to work as part of a group and interact with other people.

93. You will be less prone to negative feelings that often prohibit you from interacting with others, even if the exercise you do is not as social as other forms.

94. It also gives you something to have in common with other people and opens you up to many communities and groups that do the same activity.

Superficial Benefits of Exercise

95. You will look more attractive since your body is healthier. 

96. Posture improves and the way you hold yourself will look better. This will make you look more like the kind of person people want to be associated with.

97. Body fat will drop.

98. Strength exercises will tone your body and add muscle to your frame.

99. Your skin will look more radiant and you will have less wrinkles, pimples and black heads.

100. Body language: since you will be happier and more confident, the subconscious signals you give out will resonate with people before you even speak.

101. You will be able to wear the clothes you want to wear and will be more concerned with finding clothes that show off your body instead of finding items that hide your body.

102. Better overall health will result in hair, skin and nails looking healthier with less care needed.

103. You will look younger than what you actually are as you age.

104. Improved blood flow leads to better complexion.

105. Eyes will be less puffy and won't look as tired. Instead, they will look brighter, wither and exude more energy.

106. Exercise improves sleep and therefore recovery and regeneration. 'Beauty sleep' will have a much bigger impact on actual beauty.

107. Exercise reduces the risk of gum disease, tooth decay and discoloration by strengthening the immune system. This may also be an indirect effect, since exercise often prompts better dietary and hygiene habits.

Did I miss out on any benefits? Let me know in the comments below. STAY STRONG!

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