Excessive exercise can damage your kidneys? Scientific exercise protects your kidneys. Are you doing it right?

With the increasing awareness of health, exercise has become an indispensable part of many people's lives. Moderate exercise has many benefits for the body. It not only enhances cardiopulmonary function and improves immunity, but also helps us maintain a good figure and a positive attitude. However, did you know that more exercise is not always better? Excessive exercise may cause damage to the kidneys. So, how does excessive exercise damage the kidneys? And how can we exercise scientifically to protect our kidneys?

Excessive exercise can damage the kidneys mainly through the following mechanisms. First, during strenuous exercise, the body is in a state of stress, the sympathetic nerves are excited, and the renal blood vessels are constricted. This reduces the amount of blood perfusion to the kidneys, reduces the glomerular filtration rate, and the kidneys cannot normally remove metabolic waste and regulate water and electrolytes. If this continues for a long time, kidney cells will be damaged due to ischemia and hypoxia, affecting the normal function of the kidneys.

Secondly, excessive exercise can also cause rhabdomyolysis. When muscles are overly fatigued and damaged, substances such as myoglobin in striated muscle cells will be released into the blood. These substances reach the kidneys through the blood circulation. Due to their large molecules, they can easily block the renal tubules, leading to acute tubular necrosis, and then acute renal failure. This situation often occurs in marathons, long-term high-intensity fitness and other sports, especially for those who usually lack exercise and suddenly engage in a lot of intense exercise. The risk is higher.

In addition, excessive exercise may also lead to dehydration. If you do not replenish water in time after sweating a lot, your blood will become concentrated and the burden on your kidneys will increase. At the same time, dehydration will increase the concentration of harmful substances in urine, damage the renal tubules, and increase the risk of diseases such as kidney stones.

Since excessive exercise has so many harmful effects, how can we exercise scientifically to protect our kidneys?

1. Choose the right sport

Different sports have different loads on the body and different training effects. For those who want to protect their kidneys, low-intensity, long-term aerobic exercise is a better choice, such as walking, jogging, swimming, Tai Chi, etc. These exercises can improve cardiopulmonary function and promote blood circulation without placing too much burden on the kidneys. High-intensity anaerobic exercise, such as weightlifting and sprinting, will cause the body to produce a large amount of lactic acid in a short period of time, causing the blood pH value to drop. In order to maintain the acid-base balance, the kidneys need to make more efforts. Long-term exercise of this type may cause damage to the kidneys.

2. Control exercise intensity

Exercise intensity is one of the key factors in scientific exercise. Generally speaking, exercise intensity can be measured by heart rate. For healthy adults, the appropriate heart rate during exercise is (220 - age) × 60% - 80%. For example, for a 30-year-old person, the appropriate heart rate range during exercise is about 114 - 152 beats/minute. If the heart rate during exercise exceeds this range, it means that the exercise intensity is too high and needs to be appropriately reduced. In addition, you can also adjust the exercise intensity according to your own fatigue. If you feel slightly tired after exercise and can recover quickly after resting, it means that the exercise intensity is relatively appropriate; if you still feel extremely tired, muscle soreness the next day, and even affect your normal life, it means that you are over-exercising.

3. Reasonably arrange exercise frequency

The frequency of exercise is also important. It is not good to do high-intensity exercise every day. For most people, 3-5 times a week is more appropriate to give the body enough time to recover and adjust. Excessive exercise may cause the body to be in a state of fatigue for a long time, increasing the risk of injury and illness. In addition, the time of each exercise should not be too long, generally 30-60 minutes is appropriate, to avoid continuous long-term exercise to put pressure on the kidneys.

4. Prepare and recover before and after exercise

Before exercise, you must do sufficient warm-up activities, such as brisk walking and dynamic stretching, which can help the body adapt to the exercise state in advance, reduce the risk of muscle strain and joint injury, and also prepare organs such as the kidneys. After exercise, you should relax and recover properly, such as static stretching and massage, to help relieve muscle fatigue and promote body recovery. In addition, timely replenishment of water before and after exercise is also very important. You can drink a moderate amount of water 1-2 hours before exercise, and replenish 150-200 ml of water every 15-20 minutes during exercise. You should also replenish water in time after exercise to maintain the body's water balance and reduce the burden on the kidneys.

Exercise is essential for good health, but we must master scientific exercise methods to avoid excessive exercise that may harm the kidneys. By choosing appropriate sports, controlling exercise intensity and frequency, and doing a good job of preparation and recovery before and after exercise, we can enjoy the benefits of exercise while protecting our kidneys and keeping the body healthy and energetic. Let's take action together, exercise scientifically, and protect kidney health.