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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

another case for exercise...

Just in case you needed one more.

Today in class we learned about something called Metabolic Stress.  When your body goes through a severe trauma (such as a major burn, wound, gunshot wound, SURGERY (mom, are you reading?), or any other major injury) your body, in a sense, goes into shock.

Many times this involves one of your primary lines of immune defense (your skin) to be compromised.  Your body knows it MUST compensate for this.  So what does it do?

It steals from you.  Your body steals from itself to make sure it can heal the new priority.  And your muscles are the number one place it gets this from.  Your body starts to break down your muscles--and on occasion your ORGANS--in order to provide enough protein and Amino Acids to rebuild different proteins to fix the areas that are damaged.

Does this make sense?  Your body re-prioritizes.  And your muscles are not a priority when you have just had surgery or been in a major car accident.

So what does this mean?  If you are lacking in muscle mass, you are going to be that much more affected by trauma.  BUT, if you can take care of yourself, and lift weights or participate in weight-bearing exercise, your body will be much more able to compensate for a surgery or trauma you weren't anticipating.  It means a much faster recuperation time for you, which is ALWAYS good.

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