Nobody ever questions that exercise helps to strengthen the voluntary, skeletal muscles. Health clubs and exercise programs, books and magazine articles depend on the ability of these muscles becoming stronger with increased resistance, but are muscle cells the only cells that are improved by exercise?

The other two classifications of muscles, involuntary muscles and cardiac muscles, are made up of cells that have much the same material. All muscle cells have the ability to contract. This ability is enhanced by some type of increased physical stimulation. People who exercise regularly find that their skin (the largest organ of the body) is stronger and suppler. Skin cells are not muscle cells, but they do react to various types of stimulation.

Lack of exercise weakens the bones of the skeletal system, while a vigorous exercise program causes the cells of the bones to request more bone material from the extracellular fluid and deposit it in the bone matrix, thus making bone mineralization dense and strong.

The cells of the "anti-gravity" muscles (muscles of posture) are challenged with any kind of consistent body movement, and the cells of the vestibular system in the inner ear respond to physical activity. Properly stimulated, the cells of the balancing mechanisms become more sensitive to any and all body movement. Better balance, coordination, and rhythm are the result.

To a large extent vision is a talent, and as such, can be improved by exercise and proper stimulation. From the time we are born until the time we die we are constantly exercising the cells of the eyes. Sadly, we do not think of looking to see as a form of exercise, so most people do not concentrate on exercising the cells of the eyes. Rather they choose to compensate a weakness with corrective lenses. Vision therapists have been using trampolining very successfully to strengthen the cells of the eyes and improve vision for over forty years.

In the past, connective tissue, ligaments and tendons, were thought not to react to exercise, but now it is known that that is simply not true. Although the connective tissue reacts differently than muscles and bones, and possibly slower, it is now accepted that exercise will tighten and strengthen the ligaments of the body.

The way we learn, or gain knowledge is by stimulating the brain. Brain cells of the cerebellum are constantly monitoring the movements of all of the skeletal muscles. Typically, when a person first performs a new motor skill it is almost always incorrect. But after the act has been performed many times, these individual events become more progressively precise, sometimes requiring only a few movements before the desired result is achieved. We now know that the brain increases the number of synapses, or connections from one brain cell to another, in people who are involved in an active exercise program.

White blood cells of the immune system move faster through the body - as much as fifteen times faster during and just after a vigorous exercise program. Not only that, but they become more numerous - as much as three times normal in the blood stream after just a single minute of extremely hard exercise. Just like any other cell group of the body, white blood cells have the ability of becoming stronger individually and thus collectively becoming a stronger fighting force. Studies reveal that a regular exercise program will reduce your chance of cancer by as much as 40 percent!

Conclusion: The more than three hundred different types of cells all benefit from exercise, each will react favorably in their own way, and improve the functionality of whatever system they are part of.

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