February 28, 2005
Why long-duration exercise is a waste of your time
Long-duration exercise is a waste of your time, and can actually cause other health problems. This type of exercise makes the heart and lungs more efficient, but it reduces their reserve capacity. Simply put, your reserve capacity is your body's ability to respond effectively to sudden demands you place on it. For your heart, reserve capacity is crucial. It can mean the difference between a long healthy life and sudden death from a heart attack.
When you exercise continuously for more than about 10 minutes, your heart adapts by becoming more efficient. It achieves this efficiency through downsizing. Long-duration exercise makes the heart, lungs, and muscles smaller so that they can go longer with less energy, but there’s a trade-off. The cardiovascular system becomes very good at handling a 60-minute jog, but it gives up the ability to provide you with big bursts of energy for short periods. Far from protecting your heart, this loss makes you more vulnerable to a heart attack.
You can strengthen your heart and build reserve capacity by following a specific program I have developed during years of working with athletes, trainers, and patients at the Center for Health and Wellness. This program is called PACE or Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Exertion. You can forget about working for hours at the gym! You can build a strong heart to handle your life’s demands more effectively with the PACE system. This simple-to-follow system takes only about 10 minutes a day!
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD’s The Doctor’s Heart Cure today.
Posted by Al Sears MD at 1:55 PM | Comments (0)