Long term benefits of exercise are very important to know, especially with obesity on such a rise in the United States. They range from physical to mental benefits. Long term benefits of regular physical activity can range from things such as “long term benefits of exercise on the skeletal system” or “long term benefits of exercise on the cardiovascular system” and more. I’ll be talking about those today!

We all know about the immediate benefits of physical activity, but what are some of the long term benefits of fitness? What’s even the point of exercising and staying in shape? There has to be more to it, right?

I mean, if you could sit around and eat pizza while watching American Ninja Warrior (totally not what I just did) or go to Olive Garden’s all you can pasta bowl daily (totally not what I did yesterday) and be healthy, who would want to waste their time at the gym? There have to be some long term benefits of participating in regular physical activity.

Today, I’ll be diving more into the long term benefits of working out!

Everything About Long Term Benefits of Exercise

1. Classification of Weight2,3,5

To start of with, lets look at an post by the National Institute Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) from 2021 and Centers For Disease Control and Prevention from 2022. First thing they do is define categories of weight, I’ve put that chart below (this hare ONLY applies to Adults at least 20 years of age):

Body Mass Index (BMI)	Classification
18.5 to 24.9	Normal, or healthy weight
25 to 29.9	Overweight
30 to < 40	Obese
40+	Severely Obese

You might be asking, what is BMI? It’s calculated using your age, weight and height. It gives you a rough estimate of what weight category you are an. It is completely accurate? Of course not.

For example, if you weight train, you will have extra muscle and weight more. You could be potentially considered overweight, even though you might have a healthy body fat percentage.

Now lets look at what overweight and obesity rates are in men and women in America:

	Men	Women	Men and Women
Overweight	34.1	27.5	30.7
Obesity	43	41.9	42.4
Severe Obesity	6.9	11.5	9.2

This is astounding. Basically, almost 75% of combined adults are either overweight or obese.

Here’s a chart of how that’s trending up per year. The image is courtesy of NIDDK

This is alarming. Still though, why should anyone care about the long term benefits of exercise? Having a extra fat/weight doesn’t really affect anything, right? On top of that eating healthy is expensive and it’s time consuming to make your own food.

Also, who has the time to exercise all day? Well, I will be getting into these in the next few sections and you’ll find out you might be spending just as much, if not more, by not caring for your health. This will come in the form of your hard earned money and your valuable time.

2. Why Is It Important To Think About Long Term Benefits of Exercise?1,4,7

Well, what are some long term benefits of exercise you can think of? You’ll look better, you won’t have as much weight weighing you down so it’ll be easier to be mobile. The less overweight you are, the less stress on your joints you’ll experience. You’ll have more energy too.

Here’s how Physical Activity Guidelines For Americans defines physical fitness as: “the ability to carry out daily tasks with vigor and alertness, without undue fatigue, and with ample energy to enjoy leisure-time pursuits and respond to emergencies.”

Lets dive into some things you might not be thinking about.

Physical exercise can also improve mental processing speed, memory and executive function. It will also lower the risk of developing dementia, which includes Alzheimer’s disease.

It lowers the risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality, sustained blood pressure decrease and decrease in depressive symptoms (over prolonged period of time).

As you can see, the benefits aren’t just physical, they are mental as well.

It was reported just doing 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of moderate to intense/vigorous aerobic activity decreased overall morality by 33%!

If that’s not enough, physical activity can delay or slow the progression of chronic diseases such as hypertension (high blood pressure) and type 2 diabetes.

For those that are physically fit, they have a less chance of developing many different forms of cancers.

Another problem that arises is something known as sarcopenia. What is sarcopenia? It’s when you naturally lose muscle once you reach the age of 30 (some sources I found said more around 40). Muscle mass decreases by 3-8% per decade of life.

This will put these older adults at greater risks for falls and breaking their bones. Bone mass also decreases as you age, so the chance of breaking a bone just increases only more as you age. This could lead to being hospitalized and having to do physical rehabilitation. Why not try to prevent this in the first place?

You can combat this with weight training! If you weight train, your body will realize it still needs the muscle and you won’t lose as much.

If you don’t understand the importance of physical activity to this point, then I’m not sure.

I agree with the fact that everyone should be proud of they way they look, but it’s more than about how you look.

3. Not Exercising Could Cost You Your Hard Earned Money4

The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans stated that 117 billion dollars in health care costs and 10% of premature deaths are associated with inadequate physical activity.

That’s insane. “Oh, but I have great health insurance”. That’s great, you’ll still be wasting your time going to all your appointments and potentially being hospitalized.

Instead of that, you could have just exercised and improved the quality of your life at that time (there are immediate benefits of exercise as well!) and for the future. You might have potentially saved yourself from health decline for your future. That will be time and money for the future. It’s simple.

Look at the image below. It show the MRI of the legs of 40 year-old triathlete, 70 year-old sedentary individual and 70 year-old triathlete:

The the 70 year-old sedentary individual, the white looking stuff is all adipose tissue (fat). The dark stuff inside it is the remaining muscle and the little white dot is their bone.

The 70 year-old triathlete looks like they have more muscle than the 40 year-old triathlete. Their bone looks healthier too. This is the power of exercise!

Choose your hard. Exercising is hard, but not taking care of yourself and developing problems in the future will be hard on your life as well.

4. How Much Should You Exercise?4

This sections is directly from my article about physical fitness, so if you’ve already read that, you should know all this.

I. Aerobic Activity

It’s recommended you perform 150 minutes to 300 minutes (5 hours) of moderate level aerobic activity or 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) to 150 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity.

Obliviously, you don’t have to start at this number. Maybe start at 30 minutes a week split over 6 days (that’s 5 minutes of walking a day). Then maybe increase 5 minutes on certain days until you get to the point you are performing at least 150 minutes of aerobic activity a week.

The guidelines also stated that performing aerobic activity even more than 150 to 300 minutes a week continues to have even more added health benefits. Though, that is a lot of exercising.

Moderate level activity is 50-70% of your maximal heart rate, while vigorous or activity is 70-85% of your maximal heart rate. To see how to determine that check out my post 5 BIGGEST Things About Aerobic Training (Cardio) Everyone Trying To Lose Fat Should Know About.

Physical activity examples, but are not limited to:

Moderate-Intensity	Vigorous/Intense Intensity
Walking briskly to taco bell (2.5 mi/hr)	Jogging/Running home so you don’t poop your pants and can get home in time to get to the toilet
Bicycling home at 10 mi/hr after getting rejected from your crush	Swimming laps
General yardwork without heavy lifting	Sprints to run away when you see your crush
Water aerobics	Playing sports

II. Muscle-Strengthening Activity

I loved reading about muscle-strengthening activity section in the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. I feel like they consulted actual bodybuilders for recommendation and I actually agree with that.

Muscle-strengthening exercise increases your bone density and muscle mass. The more muscle you have, the more calories your burn just existing.

They recommended to train each large muscle group twice a week which I absolutely agree with. I go into this much more deeply in my Weightlifting for beginners article. I share a complete workout in it too.

As you can see, there are endless benefits to exercise. Yes, I get it, we can die at any time and exercising won’t 100% keep us from getting sick, but why not at least try to take care of our bodies? We only get one. I also didn’t touch on nutrition, here, but that’s so important as well!

This post has been all about the long term benefits of exercise!

Disclaimer: I’m not your doctor. Please consult your doctor, nutritionist or any health care professional before making any changes in your own lifestyle. These blogs are just me sharing my knowledge for you reading entertainment purpose only. None of this is medical advice.

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