Heart disease develops against a background of adverse health conditions or diseases called “risk factors”, such as hypertension, high cholesterol, overweight, insulin resistance, diabetes and smoking.
Regular exercise reduces or even eliminates the effect of these risk factors known to cause heart disease. Regular exercise has been shown to prevent overweight and obesity and reduce insulin resistance.
The protective effect of exercise on heart health applies to healthy people as well as those with heart disease.
Benefits of Exercise
- It prevents overweight, especially prevents abdominal fat. Fat in this area is the most dangerous type of fat in terms of atherosclerosis.
- It can prevent the development of high blood pressure and delay its onset.
- Reduces the severity of high blood pressure; supports drugs in its treatment.
- It can prevent or delay the development of insulin resistance.
- It can prevent high cholesterol and other blood fats; it helps medicines in the treatment.
- It helps to better control blood sugar in diabetics.
- Improves the contractile performance of the heart in people with heart failure in the long term. It strengthens the heart muscle.
- In people with arteriosclerosis, it enables new capillaries to develop in the vascular bed that feeds the heart (coronary).
- Provides new capillary development in patients with stenosis / blockage in the leg arteries.
- It helps to improve heart performance faster after a heart attack and by-pass surgery.
Effects of Exercise on the Heart
Regular and systematic exercise reduces the risk of heart attack by half in both healthy individuals and cardiovascular patients, and even accelerates the recovery process in those who have had a heart attack. During exercise, the heart muscle works harder. For the heart muscle to work harder, it needs more blood supply.
In this case, regular exercise helps to dilate, flush and regenerate the coronary vessels that supply the heart muscle. As the need grows, new vessels are created. Natural bypasses, which occur when new vessels open, strengthen the heart muscle, preventing heart failure, the risk of infarction and poor outcomes.
Like other muscles, the heart is strengthened by regular physical activity. As your cardiovascular fitness improves, your heart muscle doesn’t have to work as vigorously to pump oxygen-rich blood throughout your body. Promoting efficient blood flow is just one way that exercise helps your heart. Regular or moderately vigorous exercise reduces the risk of heart disease and attacks. Having a strong heart helps you cope with other stresses in life, whether physical or emotional.
Resistance training, also called strength training, also has benefits. Long-term resistance training can help lower blood pressure. Resistance training also increases muscle mass. This makes it easier for your body to burn calories and promote healthy weight gain, which helps keep your heart healthy.
As the number of active muscle groups will increase during exercise, oxygen demand will be higher. It is also necessary to maintain a constant body temperature, which tends to rise during exercise.
What Exercise Should I Do for Heart Health?
The type of exercise that has proven to be beneficial for heart health is “aerobic exercise with movement”. Types of brisk exercise that work the striated muscles in the body are beneficial for heart health. Simply choose the exercise that you enjoy and can sustain.
You should choose the type of exercise that best suits you according to your age, joint health, other health problems and your capabilities. The important point here is that you move, pace yourself and maintain it regularly.
To maintain your heart health, you should do regular, brisk exercise at least 3 times a week for at least 40 minutes each time. If you can do more, that’s even better.
Heart Rate During Exercise
Average heart rate varies with age. In a moderate intensity exercise, 50-70% of the maximal heart rate for age is targeted. Moderate-intensity and regular-continuous exercise is sufficient to maintain heart health in a healthy person.
If you are new to exercise or sports, you should aim for a heart rate close to 50%. If your heart rate increases immediately during exertion, you are not yet used to it and need to reduce the level of exercise. If your heart rate is slow, you can increase the intensity of your exercise.
After weeks, months, as you get used to the exercise, as your fitness improves, you will be able to do a greater amount of exercise more comfortably. Your heart rate will rise more slowly. This allows you to increase to a more intense level of exercise and over time you can reach 70-80% of your maximal heart rate.
Should people with heart disease also exercise?
According to experts, the answer to this question is yes. In heart failure patients, heart attack survivors and bypass surgery patients, regular exercise has been shown to improve long-term cardiac performance, supplement medication and accelerate clinical recovery.
This type of exercise should be determined and monitored under the supervision of a physician according to each patient’s own level of heart health.
CAUTION: All this information and recommendations apply to healthy people without heart disease. People with heart disease should consult a physician for the type and amount of exercise appropriate for them.