Our modern world is rich in technology but poor in our activity levels. We have become virtually immobile and can claim the honor of being the most physically inactive population that has ever lived. Otherwise able-bodied, we sit during our work hours and again in the evening maintaining our addiction to one small screen or another. No surprise that we are so out of shape that we develop pot bellies in our twenties and that our hearts pound and we gasp for air when we exert ourselves even slightly. No surprise that our arteries clog, our blood pressure zooms and we suffer from the effects of mental and emotional stress. And, no surprises that our bodies designed to be strong and physically active deteriorate and decay from lack of use. The biggie of them all is heart disease and by the age of forty almost fifty percent of men and more than 30 percent of women (one in three adults) have one or more types of cardiovascular disease and the tragic part of it is they will not even know it. That is until they end up in the emergency room with a heart or brain meltdown and it may well be too late for anything to be done. This problem is so big seven million people world wide die each year and 2600 die in the US every single day from heart disease alone. But what else can we expect when 'lack of proper exercise' is the cause and sixty percent of the world's population does not get enough muscle building and maintaining exercise. The facts are you can keep your heart strong or let it become unfit, scrawny and weak. To keep it strong you need to keep all of your muscles strong. Their strength aids the heart by taking some of the load thereby reducing strain on it whereas weak flabby muscles make the heart work harder. Strong muscles help push blood around the body as when they are firm and toned they squeeze or 'milk' the blood back to the heart every time you move. If muscles are weak they cannot do this so the load falls directly on the heart muscle. To help your heart you must strengthen your whole body. We used to believe that long, slow, low intensity activity like walking, jogging or cycling was the type of activity that would keep the heart muscle strong but we now know this is not the best exercise to strengthen the heart. Research has proved it actually downsizes the heart/lung system as it becomes more efficient to perform endurance work. This is not a good thing to do especially as one becomes older. The only type of exercise to truly strengthen the heart and every other muscle in your body is strength training exercise. No other type of activity can even come close to the life giving benefits that this type of exercise performed properly can provide. The heart is a powerful muscle that contracts, expands, and gets stronger as other muscles do when worked. When you perform proper strength training exercise you improve the condition, robustness and resilience of your heart muscle keeping it strong along with all of the other muscles in your body. As the heart gets stronger, blood pressure and heart rate go down decreasing risk of heart attack or stroke as the heart becomes more efficient and can pump out more blood with every beat. Even people that have unhealthy elevated resting blood pressure can actually strength train their hearts back to a healthy level. Strength training as a component of a cardiac rehabilitation program is well-recognized by clinicians, but it is also now coming to the forefront of preventive medicine for its profound effect in reducing the risks of cardiovascular disease for all adults. Although strength training is known for developing and toning muscles, it also maintains the integrity of bones, builds stronger connective tissue and greater joint stability, increases the metabolism (the rate the body burns fuel) decreasing unhealthy body fat. It is beneficial for everyone and especially so as we grow older because muscle mass diminishes with age, and strength training will help prevent this muscle loss and rebuild what may have been lost. This puts you in a much better position for disease protection and to combat the aging process.
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