How To Make Heart Stronger And Healthier

How to Strengthen Your Heart: 12 Steps (with Pictures) …

1. Talk to your doctor. Strengthening your heart through exercise can be as simple as taking a daily walk, but it is essential that you first get a professional assessment of your current heart health and overall fitness. If you push too hard and too fast, ignore underlying health conditions, or fail to give your heart a proper workout, you may end up doing more harm than good. Consult your physician about your current risk factors for heart disease and an overall assessment of your heart health. From there, you can work together to develop an appropriate exercise regimen for strengthening your heart and, in the process, hopefully reducing your risk for cardiovascular issues.
2. Get up, and get moving. Unlike other muscles, you heart is always working. However, long stretches of sedentary behavior like sitting provide no impetus for your heart to grow stronger. Even standing instead of sitting, or pacing around instead of standing still, will make your heart work a bit harder. Replacing a sedentary lifestyle with a more active one can help strengthen your heart and reduce your risk of heart disease by half at the same time. Even just thirty minutes of mild to moderate physical activity per day can benefit your heart health. One thirty-minute walk or three ten-minute walks each evening are enough for most people to gain some benefits.
3. Aim for 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. In addition to getting up and moving around more often, you should focus on getting two and a half hours of moderate exercise per week in order to strengthen your heart muscle. Alternatively, and depending on your fitness level and your doctor’s advice, 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week will achieve the same results. To achieve moderate exercise, your heart and breathing rates should increase, but you should not be so winded that you are unable to carry on a conversation. For many people, activities like brisk walking, dancing, raking leaves or gardening, or playing with children or pushing a stroller constitute moderate exercise. Divide your workout into time intervals that work for you. Exercise in intervals of ten minutes or more at a time, depending on your schedule. Don't skip exercise just because you can't perform for 30 minutes or more continuously. With vigorous exercise, you will be breathing hard enough that it will b
4. Supplement your routine with strength training. There are no weight-training exercises that specifically benefit your heart, because it is a unique muscle with a distinctive function. However, regular strength training will give your heart a workout and improve your overall fitness level, which in turn makes it easier for your heart to function properly. To build and maintain muscle and benefit your heart muscle, aim for two to three strength training sessions per week. Depending upon your fitness level, these sessions may or may not involve the use of weights. Once again, consult with your physician about the type of strength training that is right for you. Pushing too hard or using improper technique could end up hurting your heart.

How To Make Your Heart Stronger Cleveland Clinic Health …

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