The month of February is not only a time to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It’s also a time to honor your marvelous human heart. It’s a fist-sized, hard-working, muscular organ that lies in the center of your chest, tilted slightly to the left, that will beat 100,000 times today.
American Heart Month was first designated in 1964 and proclaimed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The goal of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA) was to educate people about the number one cause of death in both men and women: cardiovascular disease (CVD). CVD is a class of diseases that involve the heart and blood vessels and includes heart attacks and strokes. In the U.S. alone, it claims over half a million people every year. That’s 1 in every 4 deaths. And CVD is the leading cause of death around the world. By 2030, it’s estimated that 23.6 million people globally will succumb to this disease.
Exercise for Your Heart
The bright side of these frightening statistics is that regular exercise is proving to be the single most important key to heart health. Something to think about the next time you plan on skipping an exercise class! But to be fair, regular exercise is just one of the habits we are urged to include in a heart-healthy lifestyle. Other healthy habits include: quit smoking (including e-cigarettes), maintain a healthy weight, eat healthy foods (avoiding trans fats), reduce sodium intake, reduce stress, get 7 to 9 hours of sleep, manage any health conditions (especially high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes), avoid long periods of sitting, and exercise at least 30 minutes most days of the week at a minimum.
So why is exercise so good for the heart? Believe it or not, science hasn’t figured it out completely. But, enough great studies and observations have been done to prove there are huge benefits to our heart and our whole circulatory system when we exercise regularly.
How Exercise Benefits Your Heart
To appreciate the benefits of exercise on the heart, it’s important to remember that the heart is absolutely essential for our body’s overall health and function. The heart, complete with its own electrical system, pumps blood in and out through its four chambers. It carries vital oxygen and nutrients through the circulatory system to feed the 1.5 trillion cells that make up our organs and tissues. (Everywhere but to our corneas.) Amazingly, the heart weighs in at only around 7 to 15 ounces. But every day, it pumps around 2,000 gallons of blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels. And remember, this is non-stop, 24/7, every…single…day!
The heart itself is made of muscle tissue. And, just like resistance training helps strengthen our skeletal muscles, aerobic exercise and resistance training help strengthen the heart and improve its function. As the heart gets stronger, its stroke volume improves. That’s mainly because of the left ventricle. And this is good because the job of the left ventricle is to pump oxygen-rich blood out to the body’s general circulation. So when your left ventricle can hold more blood, the heart becomes more efficient at moving larger volumes of blood while beating less often. It also means the vascular system (all 60,000 miles) can move more blood because it’s more relaxed from being used and not stiff from plaque buildup from being underused. Where you start to notice these improvements is by tracking your blood pressure.
As you exercise and your muscles and lungs need more blood and oxygen, your blood pressure (BP) will increase. Most noticeable is the systolic pressure. This is the top number and lets you know how much pressure the blood is exerting against the artery walls when the heart is pumping blood out of the left ventricle. This rise will be proportional to how hard you are working. But it is only temporary. Two to three hours after exercise, elevated BP begins to drop. Over the long run, with continued exercise, blood pressure levels will lower at rest throughout the day. These changes may be fairly minor in people with an already normal BP, but someone with an elevated blood pressure could have more significant changes.
Exercise Benefits All Age Groups
And, these benefits aren’t reserved for the young. The heart-healthy benefits of exercise can be experienced at any age. Even if you have not been active for many years.**
As the trainers at Agile 4 Life Fitness see it, exercise shouldn’t be seen as a luxury. It’s the smartest health care intervention you can make. That it happens to be fun, makes you feel better, look younger, boosts your energy, clears your mind, and allows you to hang out with some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, well, that’s just an added benefit. Happy Heart Health Month, everyone!
**If you haven’t been exercising regularly, please check with your doctor or health care provider before starting any new exercise program.
