Benefits of Exercise to the Heart

What are the benefits of exercise to the heart? There are a number of ways that exercise will benefit not only your heart, but also your overall health and wellness.

The heart is a muscle. In order for any muscle to work at peak efficiency, it needs to be exercised. When a muscle is not exercised, it begins to weaken and atrophy. Muscular atrophy leads to a loss of strength and endurance. When this happens, the unexercised muscle no is no longer working at maximum capacity. Subsequent effort strains and tires the muscle unless it is reconditioned and redeveloped. The heart is no different than any muscle except in one key way. Once your heart has weakened, it needs to work harder to accomplish its tasks because it pumps blood through your circulatory system less efficiently. Your heart pumps constantly and it is the most essential muscle in your entire body. Therefore, it is even more essential to keep your heart healthy and conditioned than it is for any other muscle in your entire body.

Regular exercise strengthens the heart muscle and allows it to work at its maximum capacity, allowing you to experience all of the benefits of exercise to the heart.

Any exercise benefits your heart to some extent. Some exercise is always better than no exercise. The best workout to achieve benefits of exercise to the heart is aerobic exercise. However, there is benefit in other forms of exercise as well, such as weight training, high-intensity interval training, organized sports and yoga, just to name a few.

Anything that gets your heart rate up to about 60% to 70% of your target heart rate and sustains it for 20 minutes or longer will provide the most benefits of exercise to the heart. Aerobic exercise consists of things like running, bicycling and walking.

Strength training consists of doing resistance exercise to build muscle size, strength, and/or endurance. Strength training also benefits the heart by causing it to work harder – which leads to increased heart strength. Strength training has fewer benefits for the heart, however, than aerobic activity.

High intensity intervals alternate aerobic activity with strength training in specified amounts of time. This can help to condition and strengthen your heart.

There are a number of benefits of exercise to the heart, especially aerobic exercise.

• Regular exercise reduces the risk of heart disease.
• Exercise can lower high blood pressure.
• Exercise lowers the risk of developing high blood pressure.
• Those who exercise regularly have reduced risk of heart attack and stroke.
• Exercise raises good cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein or HDL) levels.
• Exercise lowers bad cholesterol (low density lipoprotein or LDL) levels.
• Regular exercisers experience increased blood flow.
• Your hearts capacity to work and pump blood increases with regular exercise.
• Diabetes – which can lead to heart problems – is reduced with regular exercise.
• People who exercise regularly experience reduced feelings of depression and anxiety, which can contribute to heart attack.
• Regular exercise reduces the incidence of obesity, which can lead to heart disease.
• Exercise is a stress reducer. Stress may contribute to heart attack and high blood pressure.

There are other non heart-related benefits of exercise, as well.

• Regular exercise can improve a variety of mental conditions, including mood, concentration and mental acuity.
• Exercise can also strengthen muscles, which can decrease all kinds of pain including back pain.
• Regular weight-bearing exercise decreases the risk of osteoporosis and hip fracture.

Clearly, physical activity confers a whole host of health benefits that can make your heart pump more efficiently and your body perform more effectively. Recommendations for exercise to improve your health follow.

• Do some form of aerobic exercise for a minimum of 30 minutes per day for a minimum of three days per week.
• Incorporate strength training into your exercise program a few times per week. Try to exercise each muscle group at least twice a week.
• If you don’t have time to do both strength training and aerobic exercise, try doing high-intensity interval training or aerobic circuits three times per week.
• Always ease into an exercise program in order to give your heart and other muscle groups time to adapt to a new workout program – especially if you have been very sedentary.
• It’s best to check with your personal health care provider before undergoing any new exercise program.

• Pictures of People Exercising
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• Male Fitness Model

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• Naked Exercise
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