Wellness experts seem to always be harping on about heart health, and the steps you need to take to guard your wellbeing against heart disease, but what do you actually need to do? Aside from drinking less, eating better and quitting smoking, if you want to love your heart, you need to get it pumping.
Being active is essential for a healthy heart, because your heart is a muscle and you need to use it to keep it strong. That sentence may seem like a line from a Taylor Swift song, but you genuinely need to strengthen your heart muscle to help it pump more efficiently, and give you more stamina and greater energy. Exercise also improves the ability of your body’s tissues to extract oxygen from your blood, which helps you to speed your metabolism.
There are three types of exercise are vital for all-round fitness. Firstly, aerobic exercise, also known as cardio, is any kind of activity that increases your breathing rate and gets you breathing more deeply. This is particularly important in the prevention of coronary heart disease, as activities such as walking, running, swimming, dancing or using a rowing machine, treadmill, stepper or elliptical trainer increases your heart muscle strength. With these exercises, your body is more able to extract oxygen from your blood and transport it to where it needs to go.
Resistance training strengthens your muscles and bones and protects your joints from the risk of injury. Exercises using weights, yoga exercises in which you use your body weight, press-ups, lunges, squats and even carrying heavy shopping bags are all good for resistance. Though resistance training doesn’t increase the fitness, it can help to control your weight because muscular tissue burns more calories than fat. However, you should check with your doctor if you have uncontrolled high blood pressure or heart disease, as this type of exercise isn’t advisable.
Finally, flexibility exercises are important for your heart, as stretching helps to relax and lengthen your muscles, improve your blood flow, and keep you supple so you can move more easily. It is recommended that you stretch for five to 10 minutes every day, and you can learn various simply stretches in any exercise book, online, or from a fitness trainer. You can also take part in stretching-orientated classes, such as yoga or Pilates. That said, there may still be some exercises or postures that are not recommended if you have heart disease, so check with your doctor first and inform your instructor.