What are the Real Benefits of Aerobic Exercise?

In today's busy world filled with prescription drugs and crash dieting, the benefits of aerobic exercise are often overlooked. Aerobic exercise is the best way to maintain a healthy weight, and it is also beneficial to heart health, bone strength, mental acuity and disease prevention. Aerobic exercise health benefits are a long lasting and inexpensive way to keep you looking and feeling great from the moment you start until old age.

The aerobic exercise benefit is so great because of the way our bodies respond to the increased need for oxygen that comes along with aerobic exercise. As you start to work out, the circulatory system responds by pushing itself harder; the heart enlarges and beats faster. One of the most important benefits of aerobic exercise is that after weeks of aerobics, the heart actually grows, just like any other muscle that receives a healthy workout on a regular basis.

The increased heart size in turn means that in day to day activity it doesn't have to work as hard; you will find yourself climbing stairs without being out of breath and able to walk or run longer distances with less difficulty. Your body becomes more efficient and better able to handle the everyday tasks that it encounters.

Aerobic exercise health benefits are not contained to just heart health, either. As with any regular physical activity, one of the benefits of aerobic exercise is a healthier looking body. As you work out regularly, your muscles respond by hardening and becoming leaner; fat is burned off. This can leave you looking years younger. The aerobic exercise benefit to the way you look isn't merely aesthetic; greater muscle density contributes to bone strength, which reduces the risk of breaking bones later in life. Losing weight also greatly reduces the risk of developing diseases such as diabetes and it also lowers cholesterol.

But perhaps one of the greatest benefits of aerobic exercise is that is a completely natural way to do something wonderful for your body. Without the help of drugs or expensive programs, you can achieve aerobic health benefits: a healthier heart, stronger bones and muscles, a reduced risk of disease and a younger, leaner body. The wide range of aerobic exercise benefit to human health is impossible to deny. Before embarking on an aerobic exercise plan, however, you should check with your primary physician; and before you know it all the aerobic exercise health benefits will be yours.

Stan Rogers is an alternative health researcher and an expert in natural healing. He is a contributor to many health sites, including the Home Gym Reviews section of http://www.fitness-events.com, a site about fitness, health and exercise.