long distance dangers
Just a few weeks ago, three men suffered a heart attack while running the Los Angeles Marathon. Two of them died.
Tragic, yes, but I’m not surprised. I have been warning my patients about the dangers of long-distance running for years.
In today’s Health Alert, I’ll show you how to avoid this unnecessary heart risk. What kind of exercise strengthens your heart and also increases your lung volume?
The Basics of Heart-Healthy Exercise
Nature shaped your heart to adapt to challenges. By doing so, your heart removes unused capacity. If you train your heart to adapt to longer “cardio” intervals, such as in a marathon, for example, you force your heart to sacrifice strength, power, and reserve capacity.
However, strength, power, and reserve capacity are exactly what your heart needs most to keep up with the demands of the real world.
There is only one way to increase strength in your arms or legs. And that is physically challenging his power. Your heart is the same. You need to challenge its power, not its duration, to make it stronger.
We get a great source of data on heart health from the landmark Harvard Health Professionals Study. The researchers followed more than 7,000 people. They discovered that the key to exercise is not duration or resistance. it is intensity. The more energy a person exerts during exercise, the lower their risk of heart disease.
High-intensity exercise can also help you live longer. Another Harvard study compared vigorous and light exercise. Those who exercised more vigorously had a lower risk of death than those who exercised less vigorously.
The best way to achieve high-intensity workouts is to break your activity into short bursts. You can use any activity that challenges your heart. My favorites are swimming, cycling, running, and elliptical machines.
I swap my patients around with each other to keep it fun and reduce the chance of “overuse injuries.” What you use will depend on your level of fitness. The most important strategy is to increase your challenge gradually over time.
Your ready-to-use PACE® program
About ten years ago, I developed a more effective program for strengthening the heart. I call it PACE® for progressive acceleration cardiopulmonary effort. It has produced dramatic results in my patients.
PACE® focuses on short bursts of exercise. I call them intervals. Break your exercise into short chunks, then gradually increase the intensity as your conditioning improves. When you do this, it is more enjoyable, more effective, and safer than longer exercise at a lower intensity.
Here’s a five-interval workout you can get started right away:
Int 1 Idle Int 2 Idle Int 3 Idle Int 4 Idle Int 5 Idle
2 minutes 2 minutes 90 seconds 2 minutes 60 seconds 2 minutes 40 seconds 2 minutes 30 seconds 2 minutes
Do the first interval at a low to moderate intensity. Then rest. But when you “rest,” I don’t mean stop. Your rest interval should be slow and easy, like you are walking.
In the second interval, increase the intensity. If you’re on a stationary bike, for example, you can increase the resistance to make it harder to pedal.
As the duration of the interval decreases, the intensity should increase. By the time you do the thirty second interval, you have to give it everything you’ve got.
If you haven’t exercised in a while, do it slowly at first. As you improve, give yourself an extra challenge each time you train.
To your good health,
Al Sears, MD
PS: This is also a superior way to burn fat. After four to six weeks, you will see your belly fat begin to disappear.