Last month we saw how lymphatic waste removal benefits your tissues ability to heal. Exercise stimulates efficient removal of biological waste products via the lymphatic vessels, so that cells find themselves in a clean environment, free to respond optimally to therapy, which means healing is usually quicker.

Exercise provides additional benefits by increasing delivery of blood to all organs involved in sustaining exercise. For example:

1. To the brain for coordinated movement;
2. to the lungs to oxygenate blood;
3. to the heart to help pump oxygenated blood;
4. to the muscles to sustain movement.

Exercise does this by:
1. increasing heart rate and contraction-force which increases blood pressure in order to pump more blood to organs
2. activating reflexes that increase artery & capillary diameter maximising blood delivery efficiency
3. increasing the rate at which nutrient and oxygen rich fluids are filtered from the blood through capillary walls into the tissue space.

All this leads to increased delivery of nutrients to tissues during exercise to feed the cells, while simultaneously forcing waste-laden tissue fluids out into lymph vessels & veins, thus cleaning tissues.
More importantly, exercise leads to a tissue response called ‘adaption’, during which muscle & other tissue cells increase their production (inside cells) of:

1. classical antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase & glutathione peroxidase making cells more resistant to oxidative stress
2. heat shock proteins that help ensure structural & enzyme proteins inside cells remain correctly folded & functional under high-stress conditions meaning cells become harder to damage
3. mitochondria, which power every process inside muscle and other cells. More mitochondria mean better cell function, damage resistance, and post damage repair – in short tissues heal more quickly.

Finally exercise training induces considerable blood vessel remodelling, developing new arteries and capillaries for muscle and other tissues which likely lead to improved organ blood flow & long term functional improvements of these tissues.

In short, the capacity of various tissues (including muscle) to resists stress and to repair more efficiently is much improved. Again, it’s easy to see why people who exercise more often respond more quickly to therapy.