Dr. Arthur Agatston, associate professor of medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, names the four best workouts for your heart to be: Interval Training, Total-body non-impact sports, weight training and yoga.
Interval Training is the best type of exercise for preventing heart disease and diabetes. It's very effective for losing weight and improves your fitness level.
How does it work? You combine short bursts of high-intensity exercise with longer periods of active recovery or a lower intensity exercise. For example, you can alternate walking at a 3 mph pace for 3 minutes and then walk at a 4mph pace for 1 minute, then back to 3 mph for 3 minutes, etc. When you continuously raise and lower your heart rate it improves vascular function, burns calories, and makes your body more efficient at clearing fat and sugar from your blood.
Total-Body non-impact sports are heart healthy. The more muscles involved in the activity, the harder your heart needs to work to fuel them. Rowing, Swimming, Cross Country Skiing, even walking with poles are great activities for the heart.
Weight Training can be another form of interval training. You increase your heart rate during the exercise repetitions and recover between sets. Combine weight training with intervals of high intensity exercise is the best form of interval training to work your heart and burn fat. This is what we do in our boot camp classes.
Yoga keeps you calm which helps to lower blood pressure making the blood vessels more elastic and promotes heart health.
Find the workout that you enjoy and reap the benefit of making your heart healthy.
