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Staying Fit
How Exercise Helps Your Heart
‘It gives me so much energy!’Mary Roberts of Slatington fell in love with exercise class six years ago, when she needed to rebuild her strength after cancer surgery. “I felt better right away,” she says, “and I kept exercising because it gave me so much more energy.” While she used to sleep until 10 a.m., the 83-year-old now rises at 7 and often is the first to arrive at Exercise for Life. If Roberts has to miss a class in Whitehall, she’ll drive to Trexlertown the next day for a make-up session. When she was in a serious car accident three years ago, her fitness level helped her bounce back fast. “Every bone in my body ached after that crash, but I was exercising again a month later,” she says.When you’re out walking, biking or swimming, you know you’re burning fat and toning your muscles. But just how is all that exercise helping your heart?The heart is a muscle like any other, says Nadeem Ahmad, M.D., a cardiologist with Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network, and regular exercise keeps it in top condition. Just as conditioned legs don’t have to work as hard to get you where you’re going, a conditioned heart doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood through your body. “People who exercise tend to have lower resting heart rates because their hearts pump more efficiently with each beat,” Ahmad says. Regular aerobic exercise also helps your heart by lowering blood pressure, keeping weight down and reducing stress. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, and both stress and obesity can cause blood pressure to rise. (Being overweight also raises your risk for diabetes and high cholesterol, two more risk factors for heart disease.) Is one type of aerobic activity better than another? No, Ahmad says, as long as you get your heart rate up for 30 minutes at least three times a week. An easy way to determine your target heart rate: subtract your age from 220, then multiply the result by .65. The most important thing in exercise is to stick with it. “Pick something you enjoy,” Ahmad says, “and the health benefit you gain will feel more like a ‘perk’ than an obligation.”
Want to Know More about choosing a heart-rate monitor?
Call 610-402-CARE. This page last updated 2/12/08 04:08 PM
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