FITNESS FAQ 1 - All About Physical Fitness
By Dr. Myles H. Bader
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
WHAT IS PHYSICAL FITNESS?
Being physically fit means having efficient lungs, a strong heart, and a good vascular system. This helps a person to withstand stress, thus making them resistant to muscular and mental fatigue, and also resistant to the many mild infections, which affect the fatigued person. Someone who is physically fit feels more alive and more aware of the world around them.
WHAT IS THE TRAINING EFFECT OF EXERCISE?
Lungs: Two vital considerations are important with regard to the lungs and their response to exercise: (1) Vital Capacity: With exercise, the muscles surrounding the lungs gain in efficiency and strength. This develops more usable lung space and the vital capacity is increased with better carbon dioxide exchange. Also, more air can be processed. (2) Residual Volume: The residual volume can be reduced by proper exercise. This will give more lung space and allow the lungs to operate more efficiently thus improving fitness.
Blood: More blood is produced, specifically more hemoglobin which carries the oxygen, more red blood cells which carry the hemoglobin and more plasma which carries the red blood cells for more total blood volume. In fact, an increase of up to nearly one quart is possible.
Blood Vessels: Blood flow is improved trough conditioning of the vessel walls to become more pliable, thus cutting down on resistance to blood flow, with the resultant lowering of the blood pressure. Also, there is an opening up of new vessel pathways or vascularization of body muscles, therefore delivering more oxygen to the muscles and carrying away more waste products. This is vital to reduce the chance of cardiac failure. The fat metabolism time is lessened and the vessel linings are kept clear of harmful material.
WHY ARE WARMING-UP EXERCISES NECESSARY?
Results of studies regarding fitness have indicated that efficiency is improved as a result of exercise. This improvement appears to be related to an increase of internal body temperature. Other studies show that warming up can lead to a decrease in pulmonary resistance of up to 13% which indicates its importance. We also find that warming up leads to improvement in the shorter dashes whereas the heavier the preceding warm-up exercises, the better the performance. However, we find that the main justification for a formal want-up program is that muscle and tendon injuries are less likely.
Frequently, a person who has done 20-30 minutes of warm-up exercises will have lower blood pressure than before starting. This drop in blood pressure results from blood being forced into capillaries that were previously closed. Opening up and dilating inactive capillaries increase the total volume of the bloodstream. This results in lower blood pressure. It also prepares the joints for further action by increasing the synovial fluid and thickening the collagen tissue.
WHAT CAUSES SORE MUSCLES?
In the event of strenuous exercising or work, we find that the occurrence of sore muscles can be divided into two groups. One group contains the muscles that are sore during and immediately after exercise. The other group; are the muscles that have localized soreness appearing after a 24-48 hour period. The soreness in the first group is probably due to the end products of metabolism acting upon pain receptors. Exercise tends to reduce the amount of lactic acid and carbon dioxide.
The movement of these chemicals is exemplified by localized pain. The second type of pain, which occurs the next day, is often attributed to microscopic tears in muscle or connective tissue, although there is no real scientific proof of this.
