The Hidden Benefit Of Exercise
There are countless stories about people who run through airports carrying luggage who keel over and die. Have you ever given any thought to why this phenomenon happens so frequently? The reason has to do with the muscles' ability to process oxygen.
Muscles are protein fibers whose purpose is to contract and release. Depending on what activity your body is engaged in the contract and release process allows you to lift, run, walk, throw, and jump. In order for a muscle to grow it would go through one of two processes: hypertrophy or protein synthesis.
Hypertrophy –
Hypertrophy is the expansion of muscle tissue. Muscles respond to stress put onto them by weight either by expanding or growing. In my house, I am what’s know as “the firm’s dietician”. When I’m home I enjoy cooking all meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On Sunday morning (when I’m in the mood) it’s not unusual for me to cook pancakes (blueberry, raspberry, banana or cinnamon by the way).
(When I drip the batter into the pan I usually prefer to do the smaller size which are called “nickel-sized pancakes”. But I digress.) Anyone who has ever made pancakes from batter knows that the longer you allow the batter to drip onto the frying pan the larger the pancake will be. That expansion process is what “Hypertrophy” is like. Hypertrophy is what gives the body that lean chiseled look, where the muscle is strong by not thick and bulky. That’s because “Hypertrophy” can be done without apparatus(weights).
If you want your body to burn fat, increase speed, improve strength and endurance you would choose an exercise program that would not put more weight on your muscles than they can naturally handle: push-ups, sit-ups, squats, toes raises, and small weights not to exceed ten pounds are examples of how you would get your muscles to go through the “Hypertrophy” process.
Protein Synthesis –
The second part of the way that muscles grow is called protein synthesis. In order for protein synthesis to happen muscle damage has to occur. Muscle damage does not occur unless the muscle has been pushed beyond what it can handle. Because your muscles are, in effect, designed to handle the weight of your body they can not be damaged by lifting it, as in when you do push-ups or sit-ups for example. On the other hand, if you force your body to lift greater weight than it is used to, your muscles will grow in response to it. The growth process is protein synthesis. Let’s assume that your weekly routine includes you lifting a fifty-pound weight fifteen times on Mondays and Wednesdays. This week, though, you decide to lift sixty pounds instead of your usual fifty. As you struggle through your routine, intending to get to your number fifteen base count, you encounter fatigue and burn out at the count of nine, but instead of putting the weight down you take a few deep breaths and forge ahead. You get to eleven; on twelve your spotter moves in and assists you through the number.
The result! You have just experienced muscle damage, but don’t worry it’s not bad. After a hot whirlpool and a shower to reset your muscles you dress and head off to work. During the day because of the adrenaline needed to manage the weight you feel upbeat and energized, but the next day you feel like somebody worked you over with an ugly stick. You feel tired and listless, you may even experience a feeling of demotivation for doing ordinary things (let that damn dog walk himself, who's the boss around here anyway). What you are undergoing is protein synthesis. Here’s how it happens: say you have two muscle fibers (okay I have two uncle fibers). As you bring stress on them through exercise (not threatening to rob them) they first go through the process of Hypertrophy. At the end of the Hypertrophy cycle if the stress is continued to be placed on them they will become damaged and breakdown. When the fibers repair themselves they add two more strands of protein in anticipation of another stress onslaught. This is protein synthesis. Protein synthesis takes about thirty-six hours to complete.
Why oxygen and blood is important to work muscles –
Blood carries oxygen to the muscles for respiration, which releases energy to contract muscles. Blood is important because it carries oxygen to the muscle cells and carries away carbon dioxide. Oxygen is a necessary source of energy for muscles, but unlike fat, your body can not store it for later use, instead, it has to be carried in through your blood. The harder a muscle is stressed or pushed to work, the more oxygen is needed. When a muscle is healthy it is able to process oxygen quickly and efficiently (intake oxygen, throw off carbon dioxide). Excessive amounts of carbon dioxide in the muscles causes fatigue and energy loss.
A healthy body will perform the above process without a dangerous amount of stress being placed on the heart. (The heart's sole purpose is to pump blood through the body so that the muscles can receive oxygen.) When muscles are out of shape and stress is placed on them as in running through an airport carrying luggage the demand for oxygen is put on overdrive, the heart goes into hyper pumping. The increased flow of blood has to be smooth and impediment free; a blockage in the artery will cause a backup of blood which will cause the heart to arrest and an attack will ensue. The primary cause of blockage in the arteries is caused by ingesting excessive amounts of fatty foods (hamburgers, hotdogs, ice cream, cheese products etc.).
Muscles and gravity –
Gravity is the commodity that wreaks the most havoc on a muscle. When we are young our muscles are like petals on a flower in bloom; they grow from being a bud on a stem and spread into life as a flower. When we reach our late twenties the blooming or spreading process ceases. At that time you are the most vigorous and have the most energy. As time marches on the downward pressure of the Earth’s gravitational pull causes your muscles to atrophy; which is exacerbated with lack of exercise. Muscle atrophy causes muscles to lose some of its ability to process oxygen. The result… we become tired more easily and need rest more frequently. Muscle stimulation can slow and even reverse the process.
Muscle atrophy and shallow breathing ( the double whammy)–
As we get older and our muscles atrophy we also begin to breathe air more shallowly; this is caused through lack of exercise (which by design forces you to breathe deep) and poor posture. (When I was a professional fighter one of the first things that my trainer taught me was how to sit up straight in between rounds so that my lungs would expand and I would ingest a greater amount of oxygen, which in turn would help rejuvenate me. Poor posture is also a result of muscle atrophy. (As we get older it becomes harder for muscles to hold your skeleton upright.)
Okay (you say)… all that is good to know! So what, if anything, can be done to improve things. The answer is muscle activation exercises and deep breathing exercises. (Yes there is such a thing as a deep breathing exercise.)
If you’re reading this you’re probably in one of my kickboxing classes. If you are you’ve no doubt noticed that during the routine I have you do a variety of exercises while hold not more than two or three pounds. Those are muscle stimulation exercises. One repetition of lightweights is not enough to rev the muscles up, but because we pass over the muscle several times in the class that revs it up. In essence, we do an exercise to a count of twelve, and when we pass over it four times that’s forty-eight ( that stimulates the muscle and revs it up).
If you are not currently in my class an easy home workout is a routine that includes a forty-minute walk that starts and ends with push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and calf raises.
Deep breathing exercise –
Here is a deep breathing exercise that can be done anywhere:
Sit up straight
Relax your body and mind
Breath deeply through your nose to a count of five thousand (while inhaling expand your chest, lungs, stomach as much as you can)
Exhale slowly through your mouth to the count of five thousand (while deflating depress your chest, lungs, and stomach as far as you can)
Continue inhaling and exhaling this way for one minute.
Additional benefits of improving the muscle’s ability to oxygenate include sleeping better, reduction of stress, increased endurance and more.
May you have everything that you want, and want everything that you have.