Why is exercise good for the body when you’re literally straining and destroying the body’s tissues every time you exercise?

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Why is exercise good for the body when you’re literally straining and destroying the body’s tissues every time you exercise?

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There’s a difference between the muscle damage that occurs during normal exercise vs the muscle damage you’d get from trying to catch a 200-pound weight that someone threw to you.

Normal exercise creates microtears that easily heal, and in the process they stimulate new growth in that area. That makes the muscle bigger and stronger over time.

Total destruction (like large tears in the muscle) is different, and can take some time to heal before you can use that muscle again.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because your body responds to (minor) damage by healing stronger than it was before. Although this isn’t a conscious process, your body is basically going , “Well, *this* part obviously wasn’t strong enough because it got damaged. So I better make it stronger/more flexible/more durable/whatever for next time.” This is an evolutionary response to adapt us to be at strong/durable as we need to be to survive in our current environment without spending more energy than necessary.

Proper exercise is the art of straining your body enough to trigger the healing/strengthening process *without* doing so much damage that you permenantly lose capability.

Your tissues are constantly dying & being replaced…the mere fact that cells are being damaged/dying and healing/replacing is just part of being alive and isn’t inherently bad. Exercise is channeling that process so that we end up in better physical condition than we were.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because it causes those muscles and tissues to regenerate and become stronger than they were before