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March 28, 2005
Want to Live Longer? Challenge Your Heart's Exercise Capacity Today!
Low-intensity exercise is also not the most effective way of living longer. A study in May 2003 of almost 2,000 British men looked at the relationship between death and low-level endurance. The researchers found this type of low-intensity exercise did nothing to reduce the participants' risk of premature death due to heart problems.
Another study at Harvard measured the effects of vigorous and non-vigorous exercise and risk of death. Subjects who performed high-intensity exercise have a lower risk of death than those who performed moderate-intensity exercise.
That’s also what a recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found. Researchers followed 644 patients with heart failure over a 10-year period. They found that the heart’s peak ventilatory oxygen uptake (VO2) (meaning the heart’s exercise capacity) was the most important criteria in predicting chronic heart failure. Exercise capacity was more important than the duration of time exercised in extending life.
What can you do to increase your heart’s exercise capacity? Simple:
Challenge your capacity, a little bit at first, but as you become conditioned, you can gradually increase the challenge. In other words, you need to perform progressive interval exercise, such as the PACE program. Long-duration walking or jogging does little to improve your cardiovascular health. To strengthen your heart and live longer, pick up the pace and follow the PACE Program.
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD’s The Doctor’s Heart Cure today.
Posted by james at 6:01 AM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2005
Shed More Fat with Interval Exercise
Most people think that the longer they work out, the more weight they will lose. They plod on mile after sweaty mile, assuming that they are melting off unwanted fat with every step. In fact, these dedicated but misinformed exercisers are undermining their own efforts! Endurance exercise is not the best way to lose body fat. Long-term exercise calls on the body to store more fat!
Your body is always adapting to the demands put on it. When you burn fat during exercise, you are telling your body to maintain fat stores so that they will be available for the next exercise session. In essence, your body hoards your fat reserves to use as fuel for future workouts. Instead of decreasing fat, this type of endurance exercise triggers your body to make more fat whenever possible.
Endurance exercise actually encourages fat production. When you begin working out, your body burns ATP, the highest energy fuel in the body, but there is only enough ATP for one or two minutes of exercise. Next, your body switches to glycogen, a carbohydrate stored in muscle tissue. Your glycogen stores will take you through about 15 minutes of exercise. After that, your body taps into its fat reserves for fuel.
This fat-burning strategy may at first sound like an ideal approach to exercise for weight loss, but it isn’t. Since your body does all it can to adapt to demands, it builds back your fat the next time you eat to prepare you for the next time you exercise for a long time. It also sacrifices other tissues, such as muscle, to preserve fat whenever possible.
One of the primary reasons people choose the wrong form of exercise is that they presume that their body changes during an exercise session. It never does. All the important changes begin after you stop working out. They are consequences of your body adapting to prepare for the next time you ask your body to perform that same activity.
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD’s The Doctor’s Heart Cure today.
Posted by james at 4:10 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2005
Why distance runners have higher rates of sudden cardiac death than other athletes
Now let's look at the physical effects of long-duration exercise by considering the extreme example of continuous- duration conditioned athletes such as long- distance runners. The marathon originated with the professional Athenian distance runner, Pheidippides, in 490 B.C. He achieved fame by running 26.2 miles from Marathon to Athens. He announced the victory of the Greeks over the Persian navy at Marathon, then "collapsed of exhaustion and died."
Also consider the story of marathoner, Jim Fixx, who preached that long-duration cardiovascular endurance training was the best method for achieving optimal health. He practiced what he preached, right up to the moment he dropped dead of a heart attack - while running.
Every year very well-conditioned long-distance runners suffer sudden cardiac death. Distance runners have higher rates of sudden cardiac death than other athletes do. Modern marathons have emergency stations specifically equipped to handle the abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks, and other cardiac emergencies that can be expected to occur. This increased risk appears regardless of culture or diet.
Long-distance running has a detrimental effect on the health of your blood fats. Scientists in Barcelona, Spain, examined the blood of long-distance runners and found that after a workout they experienced an increase in both the blood levels of and the oxidation of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.
Worse yet, a report in the American Journal of Cardiology found that distance running disrupted the balance of blood thinners and thickeners, elevating clotting levels and inflammatory factors. These changes are signs of heart distress, not a heart that's becoming stronger after exercise.
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD's The Doctor's Heart Cure today.
Posted by james at 5:00 AM | Comments (0)
March 7, 2005
The right kind of exercise to build a strong heart
Heart attacks don't happen due to a lack of endurance. They typically come about when a person is either at rest or when there's a sudden, sizable demand on the heart. Heart attacks often strike when someone lifts a heavy object, has sex, or experiences an unexpected emotional blow. For one reason or another, the oxygen supply to the heart can't keep up with a change in demand.
The right kind of exercise builds the heart's ability to respond effectively to these demands. You can indeed increase both your heart's maximal capacity and its speed at increasing its output to respond to demand. Yet long-duration exercise does not help you do this. In fact, it has the opposite effect by forcing the heart to become smaller and more efficient. The body trades the ability to handle big demands for the ability to go farther.
Studies have demonstrated that short-duration exercise improves cardiovascular health more than long-duration exercise. A recent Harvard study found that men who performed long-duration exercise reduced their risk of heart disease by 10 percent, while those who exercised in repeated shorter bouts reduced their heart disease risk by 20 percent 1. In other words, the men who did high-intensity, interval exercise reduced their heart disease risk by 100 percent more than those who did endurance exercise.
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD's The Doctor's Heart Cure today.
1 Sesso HD, Pafafenbarger RS Jr and Lee IM. Physical activity and coronary heart disease in men: The Harvard Alumni Health Study. Circulation. 2000 Aug. 29; 102(9):975-980.
Posted by james at 5:03 AM | Comments (0)