were doing something good for your heart.
Look at "Cardio"
from Your Heart's Perspective
Look
at any rack of fitness magazines and you'll see the covers loaded with
the advice that you need "cardio." Go to any gym and the trainer will
devote some of your time to "cardio." You probably don't like it, yet
you feel compelled to comply. After all, who doesn't want a healthy
heart?
Common
parlance has even accepted the term "cardio" (short for cardiovascular
endurance training) as synonymous with exercise for your heart. But
shouldn't exercise make that body part stronger? When you study the
heart's changes from cardiovascular endurance training, you find it
getting weaker in some critical capacities that simulate the changes
caused by stress and aging.
Routinely
forcing your body to perform the same continuous cardiovascular
challenge by repeating the same movement, at the same rate, thousands
of times over, without variation, without rest, is unnatural. By that I
mean our ancestors didn't regularly stress their cardiovascular systems
in this manner. Sure, this type of demand could have occurred rarely,
but not in the daily environment of a native society in balance with
its surroundings.
Yet
nature has designed your body to adapt to whatever environment it
encounters. If you ask it to perform an activity repeatedly and
routinely, it will gradually change the systems involved to meet the
challenge more effectively. But what adaptive changes does continuous
cardiovascular activity cause?
Continuous
duration taxing your endurance produces some unique challenges your
body must overcome. It must not run out of fuel, overheat, or be
overwhelmed with metabolic wastes. Its primary adaptation will be to
become more efficient at light, long, continuous, low output. One of
the ways that your body adapts is by gradually rebuilding your heart,
lungs, blood vessels, and muscles into the smallest possible form while
still maintaining the minimum "horsepower" required to perform the
activity.
You
waste fuel and raw material with a Ferrari sized engine going 20 miles
per hour. Forced, continuous endurance exercise induces your heart and
lungs to "downsize" because smaller allows you to go further… more
efficiently…and with less rest… and less fuel.
The Danger of "Downsizing" Your Heart's Capacity
So
what's wrong with increasing durational capacity through downsizing?
Instead of building heart strength, your body robs your heart of vital reserve capacity.
Your heart's reserve capacity is that portion of its maximal output
that you don't use during usual activity. Let's go back to the car
analogy. Say you normally drive at a speed of 40 miles per hour, but
your car has the ability to speed up to a top speed of 140 miles per
hour. If you think of your heart as the engine, your reserve capacity
is the difference between your normal cruising speed and that top
speed.
So
if you downsize your heart and lungs, you have traded reserve capacity
for efficiency at continuous duration. This then forces these vital
organs to operate dangerously close to their maximal output when
circumstances challenge them. For your heart, this is a problem you
don't need.
Heart
attacks don't occur because of a lack of endurance. They occur when
there is a sudden increase in cardiac demand that exceeds your heart's
capacity. Giving up your heart's reserve capacity to adapt to unnatural
bouts of continuous prolonged duration only increases your risk of
sudden cardiac death.
A
ground-breaking study of long-distance runners showed that, after a
workout, the blood levels and oxidation of LDL (bad) cholesterol and
triglycerides increased. Researchers also found thatprolonged running
disrupted the balance of blood thinners and thickeners, elevating
inflammatory factors and clotting levels – both signs of heart di
stress.
Long-Duration Exercisers |
Showed Signs of Heart Distress |
Increased LDL Cholesterol & Triglycerides |
Increased Oxidation of Cholesterol |
Elevated Clotting & Inflammation Factors |
These changes do not reflect a heart that's becoming stronger after exercise.
Exercising
for long periods makes your heart adept at handling a 60-minute jog,
but it accomplishes this feat by trading in its ability to rapidly
provide you with big bursts when circumstances might demand. The real
key to preventing heart disease and protecting and strengthening your
heart is to induce the opposite adaptive response produced by
continuous cardio and increase your heart's reserve capacity. Bigger, fastercardiac output that's readily available is what you really need.
Recent
clinical studies show us the benefit of avoiding long-duration routines
and exercising in shorter bursts. Researchers from the University of
Missouri found that short bouts of exercise were more effective for
lowering fat and triglyceride levels in the blood. (High triglycerides dramatically increase your risk of heart disease.)
Another study revealed that the duration
of exercise routines predicts the risk of heart disease in men. They
found that several shorter sessions of physical activity were more
effective for lowering the risk of coronary heart disease.
The Secret to a "Hundred-Year Heart" is Millions of Years Old
Our
ancestors lived in a world where their food fought back. Predators
attacked without notice. Humans had to run or fight – fast and hard.
These short bursts of high-output activity fine-tuned our ancient
ancestors and kept them fit. We still have the same physiology.
How
do you recreate that kind of challenge? The key is to create an "oxygen
debt." Simply exercise at a pace you can't sustain for more than a
short period. Ask your lungs for more oxygen than they can provide.
The difference between the oxygen you need and the oxygen you get is your oxygen debt.This
will cause you to pant and continue to breathe hard even after you've
stopped the exertion (until you replace the oxygen you're lacking).
Here's
an example: Let's say you pedal as fast as you can on a bike for 15
seconds. When you stop, you continue to pant. This is the kind of
high-output challenge you can't sustain for very long. You have reached
a supra-aerobic zone. This is very different from doing an aerobic workout for 45 minutes.
Or
you can try doing one-minute intervals – either running or riding a
bike. Work yourself up to a speed that you cannot sustain for very
long. After one minute, rest. You can do this by slowing down to a very
slow speed or you can stop altogether if you need to. Do this 3 or 4
times.
With
these types of interval exercises, you'll quickly start to build up
reserve capacity in your heart. This is exactly what you need to
prevent heart attacks and heart disease.
Peter Mwaura Mutiti
Mobile: +254-723-024-871
Web-Blog: http://petermwaura.active.ws
E-mail: petermwaura@active.ws
No comments:
Post a Comment