20 Jul The Costs to your Health when you Stop Exercising!!
YOUR MUSCLES WITHER
Strength lingers longer than endurance once you stop training. But depending on just how slothful you’ve become, your quads and biceps may start to shrink soon after you leave the weight room.
The study also found significant declines in muscle mass after 2 weeks of complete rest. What’s more, some muscle fibers actually convert from fastest-twitch type IIa to more explosive but faster-fatiguing type IIx. This can hamper your ability to sustain high-intensity efforts, Sims says.
YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE SOARS
This effect is near-instant: Your blood pressure is higher on the days you don’t exercise than the days you do. Your blood vessels adapt to the slower flow of a sedentary lifestyle after just 2 weeks, which clicks your readings up another couple of notches, according to a recent study in the journal PLoS.
Within a month, stiffening arteries and veins send your BP back to where it would be if you’d never even left the couch, says study author Linda Pescatello, Ph.D., of the University of Connecticut.
YOUR BLOOD SUGAR SPIKES
Normally, your blood glucose rises after you eat, then drops as your muscles and other tissues suck up the sugar they need for energy. But after 5 days of slothfulness, your post-meal blood sugar levels remain elevated instead, according to a recent study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
YOU GET WINDED FAST
Gasping for breath after just a few stairs?
Within 2 weeks of avoiding the gym, your VO2 max—a measure of fitness that assesses how much oxygen your working muscles can use—decreases by as much as 20 percent, says exercise physiologist Stacy Sims, Ph.D, M.Sc.
YOUR MUSCLES WITHER
Strength lingers longer than endurance once you stop training. But depending on just how slothful you’ve become, your quads and biceps may start to shrink soon after you leave the weight room.
YOU PLUMP UP
Within about a week, your muscles lose some of their fat-burning potential and your metabolism slows down, says Paul Arciero, D.P.E., an exercise science professor at Skidmore College. In findings he published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, a 5-week exercise break boosted collegiate swimmers’ fat mass by 12 percent.
YOUR BRAIN SUFFERS
Just 2 weeks on the sidelines turned regular exercisers tired and grumpy, found a recent study in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.