07/30/2018
As a vocal coach teaching, not just Basic Voice but Professional Voice and Stage Presence for over 27 years, I can tell you that if you are singing/practising for over an hour and you don't feel like you have worked out, you are doing it wrong.
There are a couple of physical benefits of singing...
Reason #1:
Singing can have a dramatic effect on heart rate variability, which may have a reduced risk of heart disease. In a 2013 study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, researchers found that choral singers had slower respiration, which improved their heart rate variability (HRV) and had a biologically soothing effect on overall heart function.
So singing can affect your heart health like yoga. Swedish researchers found that singing improves heart function essentially by forcing us to take larger, slower, more purposeful breaths and if done for a lengthy period of time such as several minutes to an hour, singing becomes an aerobic activity. It requires you to use oxygen and will place demands upon the lungs and heart to supply the oxygen needed to continue to sing and think. Better breathing techniques lower blood pressure and more cause mental alertness and cognition. Singing for health may even help relieve symptoms of Asthma. Classically trained singers like opera singers have a very strong lung capacity and well developed cardiorespiratory systems.
and
Reason #2:
Singing is a physical activity because when you sing, you have to sit or stand straight, breathe deep from your diaphragm, and the delivery of your voice uses the upper body, neck, jaw, and face muscles. Since your posture is improved, your physical health is improved because these actions taken in the course of singing can improve and release tension in the body. Singing also strengthens the muscles in the roof of the mouth or palate as well as the throat and improvement in the control of the soft palate reduces snoring and sleep apnea.
Learning the proper technique of singing from the diaphragm can strengthen your abdomen and back muscles, the intercostal muscles–the groups of muscles running between the ribs that help form and move the chest wall–become more toned the longer and more regular you sing. You will also exercise your facial muscles when you sing, which has an anti-ageing effect.
So, singing not only makes you sound good, it makes you look and feel good too!
