Exercise Information on Disability Exercises
Learn about exercise, how to lose weight and how to get fit and healthy. Our exercise category offers exercises for weight loss, cardio and strength training, flexibility, yoga and aerobics workouts. We also provide information on weight training, bodybuilding, and wheelchair exercises.
Although our listed exercises are mainly for persons with disabilities and health conditions, such as arthritis and osteoporosis, many can be performed by anyone wishing to get and stay fit. Most adults need at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity at least five days per week.
Physical exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health. It is performed for many different reasons. These include: strengthening muscles and the cardiovascular system, honing athletic skills, and weight loss or maintenance. Frequent and regular physical exercise boosts the immune system, and helps prevent diseases of affluence such as heart disease, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and obesity. It also improves mental health and helps prevent depression.
Proper nutrition is at least as important to health as exercise. When exercising, it becomes even more important to have a good diet to ensure that the body has the correct ratio of macronutrients whilst providing ample micronutrients, in order to aid the body with the recovery process following strenuous exercise.
Exercises are generally grouped into three types depending on the overall effect they have on the human body:
Aerobic exercises, such as cycling, swimming, walking, rowing, running, hiking or playing tennis, focus on increasing cardiovascular endurance.
Anaerobic exercises, such as weight training, functional training or sprinting, increase short-term muscle strength.
Flexibility exercises, such as stretching, improve the range of motion of muscles and joints.
Active exhalation during physical exercise helps the body to increase its maximum lung capacity. This results in greater efficiency, since the heart has to do less work to oxygenate the muscles, and there is also increased muscular efficiency through greater blood flow. Consciously breathing deeply during aerobic exercise helps this development of the heart and lungs.
If you spend long hours in a wheelchair you know it can lead to uneasiness and be very uncomfortable, which is true for anyone who is disabled. Keeping the body moving as much as possible in your wheelchair should be a regular part of your daily fitness program. This should be a priority no matter what your disability. Doing regular wheelchair exercise will help you increase your strength, flexibility, improve your mobility, strengthen your heart and lungs, and help you control your weight.
Proper rest and recovery are also as important to health as exercise; otherwise the body exists in a permanently injured state and will not improve or adapt adequately to the exercise. Hence, it is important to remember to allow adequate recovery between exercise sessions. It is necessary to refill the glycogen stores in the skeletal muscles and liver.
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