Your heart is a muscle that needs exercise and attention just like the rest of your muscles. Exercising for your heart health can help to decrease the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and heart disease.
Exercising for Your Heart Health
Exercise has endless benefits for your body and your mind. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends exercising at least 5 times a week for at least 30 minutes to effectively lower your risk for heart disease.
Exercise is any physical activity that makes you sweat and increases your heart rate. Hitting different heart rate zones can help you achieve different results and benefits.
Interval training has proven to be the most effective for weight loss as well as keeping your heart healthy. You can also use the chart to keep track of your progress and how long you can exert yourself at various levels.
Exercising has also proven to help reduce LDL cholesterol, which is known for building up in the blood vessels and arteries and leading to heart disease. It also helps to increase HDL (good cholesterol) levels that combat LDL levels and boost heart health.
People with high blood pressure also benefit from exercise. Regular exercise helps to maintain a healthy weight and reduce stress levels–both of which contribute to the risk of heart disease.
This allows more blood to flow through your body, including to your heart. Having better blood flow helps in all aspects of your health.
Keeping your heart strong is important if you want a long, healthy life. When your heart can pump blood with ease, the chance of heart failure or heart attack decreases tremendously.
Which Exercises are Best?
For moderate exercise, try yoga, walking, leisurely bike rides, golf, bowling, tennis (doubles), water aerobics, and volleyball.
Walking may seem rather easy, but it’s actually a great way to help strengthen the heart – especially speed walking.
By walking fast, you can increase your heart rate while doing an exercises that’ easier on the joints than other types of exercises.
For vigorous exercises, try jogging, tennis (singles), swimming, hiking, heavy gardening, kickboxing, jump rope, and soccer/field sports.
Swimming, in particular, is a vigorous form of exercise that is easy on the joints and won’t cause much pain if you have sensitive joints.
By taking a water aerobics class or simply swimming laps, you’ll be doing a full-body workout that can strengthen the body and heart.
In addition, once you’re done or you want to take a break, you can simply float and enjoy the pool before getting back to work.
Exercising for your heart health matters at all ages. The earlier you begin better health habits the more likely your health will carry on through old age.
Whether you decide to go for a walk, a swim, or even try a new MMA class, regular exercise is key to a long and healthy life as it keeps your heart healthy.
If you are currently experiencing any type of medical condition, be sure to talk to your doctor about any new exercise routines and how you can safely add it to your daily life.