Arterial dysfunction is considered the leading cause of impaired erectile function, while cardiovascular diseases are the most common risk factors. Because erectile function and cardiovascular health are so closely related, several factors that can increase your risks of cardiovascular diseases can also make you vulnerable to impotence.
On the one hand, things that can help improve the health of your heart and blood vessels can also benefit your erectile function. Physical exercises, in particular, can protect you from erection problems and improve your erectile function if you’re already suffering from vascular erectile dysfunction.
How Exercise Can Improve Your Erection
In addition to the myriad of health benefits you get when you exercise on a regular basis, physical activity can also help boost your erection. Your circulatory system improves when you engage in physical activities regularly. That’s because exercise helps promote smooth blood circulation throughout your entire body, including your genitals.
This is very important for maintaining a healthy erectile function. When you’re sexually stimulated, your penis needs to be filled with blood in order for you to attain an erection. The blood that flows into the erectile tissues of your sex organ is what makes your penis hard. Ideally, the blood will flow out of your penis after you ejaculate.
However, there are men who have trouble maintaining their erection because the blood doesn’t stay trapped inside the erectile tissues of the penis. That could be due to problems with your penile veins, or it could also be because there’s not enough blood flow into your erectile tissues.
Inadequate penile blood flow means weak erections at best. In most cases, insufficient penile blood flow results in a failure to achieve an erection. Blood flow issues usually develop due to endothelial or penile smooth muscle damage.
Any damage to your penile smooth muscles will typically result in erection problems. Damage to the endothelium is usually a result of high cholesterol or triglyceride levels, high blood sugar levels, and high blood pressure.
Atherosclerosis, in particular, can greatly impair your erectile function. When your arteries harden due to plaque buildup, it can cause your blood flow to slow down. Atherosclerosis can even block the flow of blood to your genitals. Your penile arteries which are very small are usually the ones that show the first signs of endothelial damage.
When you exercise, it benefits you not only by improving your penile blood flow but also by helping increase your testosterone levels. It also helps you to keep your weight under control. Plus, physical activities are also known to help reduce anxiety and stress, as well as reduce depression symptoms.
How Much Exercise is Needed to Improve Your Erectile Function?
Among the various lifestyle factors that affect erectile function, physical activity is the one that’s strongly correlated, and it’s also the strongest promoter of vascular health. When you engage in regular exercise, it helps protect you against obesity, metabolic syndrome, and hypertension. These diseases are common risk factors of erectile dysfunction.
Based on the results of a 2018 scientific review of physical activity interventions for men with erectile dysfunction, regularly engaging in moderate aerobic exercise may help you regain your erectile function.
The authors noted that the one which resulted in the most improvements in erectile function was moderate intensity aerobic exercise on a bicycle ergometer for forty minutes per session, at three sessions per week for a period of two months. When you’re taking tadalafil, this type of supervised exercise can help improve erectile function by more than 80%.
On the one hand, an individual supervised training program coupled with PDE5I treatment can help improve your erectile function by as much as 70% if you engage in regular moderate aerobic exercises including swimming, running, cycling, and jogging for greater than 180 minutes per week for a period of three months.
Even if you don’t take any prescription PDE5 inhibitor, mild to moderate aerobic exercise for a total of 150 minutes per week can result in a 50% improvement in your erectile function if you also follow a Mediterranean-style diet.
Boosting Your Erection
Many of the studies on physical activity interventions for erectile dysfunction usually include treatment with a PDE5 inhibitor. If you prefer natural ways to improve your erection, there are actually several herb-based supplements that can help you.
For instance, Horny Goat Weed is known to also exhibit inhibitory effects on PDE5, just like prescription medications such as tadalafil. This means that if you exercise and take Horny Goat Weed supplements, you can also expect to see huge improvements in your erectile function.
The pro-erection effects of Horny Goat Weed are largely attributed to icariin which is one of the antioxidants found in Horny Goat Weed. Recent studies on this beneficial compound indicate that icariin may also help protect you not only against erectile dysfunction and atherosclerosis but also against certain types of cancer.
Aside from Horny Goat Weed, herbs like Tongkat Ali and Tribulus terrestris are also known to have great positive effects on erectile function. In fact, if you’re taking Horny Goat Weed, it’s actually better to take it with Tongkat Ali.
That’s because Horny Goat Weed helps you by improving your ability to initiate an erection, while Tongkat Ali helps you maintain your hardness. That’s because the actions of Tongkat Ali are more geared towards preventing penile detumescence.
Tribulus terrestris, on the one hand, helps improve your erection by elevating your testosterone levels. Plus, Tribulus terrestris also promotes increased production of nitric oxide in your penis. You need nitric oxide because, without it, your blood vessels won’t function efficiently.
To further enhance the function of your blood vessels, you should take L-arginine. This amino acid is important for your erection because you can use it to increase your nitric oxide production.
The more nitric oxide you produce in your penis, the more your penile smooth muscles will relax, and the more dilated your blood vessels become. As a vasodilator, L-arginine is actually extremely effective in increasing the flow of your blood to your sex organ. And that means you get to experience a greatly enhanced erection.
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