Exercise is good for cardiovascular health. As age catches up, some form of exercise helps to prevent the occurrence of heart attacks. Aside from lowering blood pressure, it increases high-density lipoprotein (or good cholesterol), reduces stress, and improves your heart’s ability to pump more blood into your muscles by efficiently transporting oxygen from the blood.
Any form of exercise is also beneficial to help improve cardiovascular health. Staying active in general is a good way to maintain a healthy heart and prevent heart-related diseases. However, if you don’t like to sweat it out with cardio workouts, here are lots of low-intensity, low-impact exercises that will help improve your quality of heart health.
Weight training
While it may be slower and not considered a cardio workout, exercising at the right intensity can help get the heart rate up. “In addition, resistance training can help increase lean muscle mass, which is beneficial for reducing the risk of chronic conditions,” says Spoorthi, Fitness Expert, Cult.fit.
Yoga / Pilates
“Pilates is a great form of exercise for the heart because it helps reduce physical exertion and emotional stress, as well as improves metabolic function. If someone has heart disease and is advised to avoid strenuous exercise, Pilates can be adapted for strengthening your body and overall health,” says Diksha Chhabra, Pilates expert and founder of Diksha Chhabra Fitness Consultations.
Yoga and Pilates improve overall health and well-being while focusing on breath, flexibility and balance. Research says that in addition to relieving stress, practicing yoga can help lower blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and blood glucose levels, as well as heart rate, making it a useful lifestyle intervention.
to walk
It is probably the easiest and simplest exercise to do, but also very effective. You can walk anywhere, anytime, and at the pace you want. “Other ways to make your walks more challenging are to walk with some weights in hand, add more distance each time you go for a walk, or even do short jogs in between,” adds Sporthi.
Play a sport
If you play a sport that you enjoy, you will definitely have fun while you are at it and not overexert yourself either. Most sports require fast movements and this in turn can increase the heart rate when done for a period of time. It can be a fun yet effective approach to cardio-based workouts.
Just be active all day
While all of the above workouts, including cardio exercises, can be beneficial for improving heart health, there’s nothing better than staying active throughout the day. This helps increase NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), which further increases energy expenditure. Think of walking, exercising, doing household chores or simply switching options, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
You can also build a regimen with all of the above training formats to take a holistic approach to improving your heart function, without adding a lot of running and/or cycling. “A healthy heart and body are important – especially as we age and want to maintain independence, strength and optimal health and vitality,” Chhabra signed.
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