Imagine being an owner of a large plantation, and you have a servant who takes care of the farmstead. That servant obeys everything that you order. It plants, waters, and harvest whenever you tell it. Whatever you command, it does. If there is an order from you that he cannot perform, he learns and adjusts so that he will be able to do it next time.
That servant leads the rest of the crew to work harder. They form a great team. If a piece of farm equipment breaks down, it gets fixed right away. Do any areas need to be cleaned up? No problem. If there is new work, the whole team will learn how to do the job and succeed. They even get better as time goes on. They become more efficient.
The harvest in your plantation is more productive year after year. Everybody is happy.
The Musculoskeletal System
That faithful servant is the musculoskeletal system. Anytime you want those muscles to move. They move. If you want them to walk, run, jump or swim, they obey. If you start an exercise program and want your muscles to go faster or lift more massive, they will. If it gets to the point that the muscles cannot fulfill the increasing demand of the exercise, the musculoskeletal system adapts.
The Supporting Crew
The muscles have an intricate and complex system to answer the call for higher performance. The rest of the human body is the supporting cast of the leading actor, the skeletal muscle.
The heart will pump more efficiently. The arteries become more naturally rubbery from being hard. Since the HDL (good cholesterol) goes up with exercise, the HDL starts to clean up the atherosclerotic plaque by a cholesterol efflux process.
The nerve supply to a set of muscles (motor-neuron unit) becomes activated and recruits more muscles. More muscles get engaged to perform the exercise. The glands produce the necessary hormones to assist in the training.
The bones get thicker and thereby guards against future osteoporosis. Even the microorganisms inside the intestines (microbiome) get populated with healthy bacteria.
The fat inside the abdomen gets used for fuel for the exercising muscles, thus reducing the source of inflammation, reactive oxygen species, and advanced glycation end-products that lead to modern society’s common diseases.
The article How to Get Physically Active shows how the body adapts to exercise.
Make the Whole Body Healthy Thru the Muscles
There is no other organ system that we can command to make us healthy. We cannot order the heart, brain, gastrointestinal tract, skin, kidneys, lungs, liver, pancreas, adrenals, or whatever organ inside to make you healthy.
The way to control the rest of the body is through the skeletal muscles. It is our link to the rest of the organs to make them healthier. That link or cross-talk between the organs is formed and made stronger when the muscles exercises.
As the whole body adjusts to make the skeletal muscles do their job, the entire body also benefits and becomes healthier. The advantages of having a more robust blood supply when that atherosclerotic plaque is diminished affect the muscles and the rest of the body, like the kidneys and the brain.
A normally perfused organ is a happy organ. When the exercising muscles use up the stored glycogen fuel within, they provide space for the circulating blood sugar to lower blood sugar.
The damaging effects of high blood sugar on the whole body become averted. Lower blood sugar prevents a high insulin level. Persistently high insulin is the hidden cause of damage in pre-diabetes and diabetes.
It is hidden because it is not checked. Rarely. The muscles talks and influence the rest of the body thru myokines and exerkines. Exercises even helps with making new brain cells.
Being the kind landowner, you do everything to keep your servants happy to always be at their best. That is why you make sure that they get the right amount of sleep, water, and food.
Sleep
The skeletal muscles and the whole body has to be taken care of. There should be enough sleep to recover (7-8 hours). It is during sleep that the body gets stronger and faster. Not during the exercise.
Sleep time is when the body makes adaptations to meet the higher demands. The human body has to have the right nutrients, sleep, and avoid excesses and abuses.
The Harvest
The harvest comes in the form of a greater sense of well-being, increased strength, agility, balance, and better overall health. Exercise helps avoid many diseases and even leads to a longer life expectancy presented here and here and explained here. It also prevents weakness in old age.
Take Away Message
A low carbohydrate diet, avoidance of sweets, ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting, and exercise can minimize the need for prescription medications and avoid the unwanted side effects and drug interactions that usually lead to more prescriptions if not hospitalization.
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Photo Credits:
- Farm Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash
- Running Photo by Fitsum Admasu on Unsplash
- Sleep Photo by Gregory Pappas on Unsplash
- Produce Photo by Lou Liebau on Unsplash
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