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The Heart of
the Matter
HERE’S WH Y EXERCISE IS SO
IMPORTANT FOR HEART HEALTH
YOU’VE READ the stories:
a young, seemingly
healthy basketball player
suffers a heart attack
during the prime of his
life; an older runner trains for a mara-
thon, only to drop dead right before
reaching the finish line.
But don’t use these stories as another
excuse not to start exercising. The
benefits of getting and staying fit far
outweigh the risks for almost everyone
(most seemingly well people who die
during exercise are found to have had
undiagnosed congenital heart defects).
Read on for what you need to know
about exercise and the heart.
1. The heart is a muscle, and muscles thrive on exercise. Regular aerobic workouts will make your heart
stronger and more efficient—and better able to withstand any challenges
that come its way. For instance, exercise actually expands the blood vessels
around the heart, which can be a life-saver if a blood clot makes a beeline
for one of your coronary arteries.
2. The risk caused by a sedentary
lifestyle is much greater than that of
exercise. Just like a bulging waistline,
an out-of-shape heart is not a pretty
sight—and can actually be hazardous.
Product
“Fat infiltrates the heart muscle and
can potentially interfere with electrical
impulses. This may cause arrhythmias,
in the worst case even leading to sudden death,” says Pamela Peeke, M.D.,
author of Fit to Live (Rodale, 2007).
3. You cannot wear out your heart
through exercise. “It’s an old wives’
tale that you have only a certain number of heartbeats in life,” says Riva
Rahl, M.D., medical director of the
wellness program at the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas. “If your heart rate
is up for 30 minutes of exercise, the
A heart rate mon-
itor can take the
guesswork out of
a cardio workout
by giving a con-
tinuous readout.
This basic model,
the Omron HR-
100C ($34, from
Amazon.com),
has a sensor on
the chest strap;
the heart rate
appears on the
wrist display.
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benefits for the
other 231/2 hours
of the day far
exceed that.”
In fact, regular
workouts lower
your resting pulse, so at the end of the
day the well-exercised heart may have
beaten fewer times overall.
