What are the different ways you can protect yourself from cardiovascular disease?
- Go to the gym regularly
- Warm-up daily
- Aerobic exercise
- Weightlifting
- Attend group classes with friends
More and more people in their 20s and 30s are getting diagnosed with cardiovascular diseases, conditions normally thought to be reserved for just older seniors. The main culprits for this phenomenon seem to be smoking, lack of exercise, stress, and fatty food. Instead of going to a nearby gym in Manila, the working youth is spending more time smoking up to 1,073 sticks per year, eating foods high in trans fat, and using their mobile phones.
Since heart diseases have become so common, it is important for you to know how going to the gym can protect yourself from cardiovascular diseases in different ways.
Go to the gym regularly
How many times you go to the gym is as important as the act of exercise itself. To keep your heart in the best shape it can be, it is recommended you exercise at a gym in Manila at least 4 times a week with each session spanning 30 minutes each, without warm-up and cool-down. Additionally, the whole workout session you engage in should have to be moderate intensity. Each exercise should make you breathe hard during the act itself.
A workout with a moderate level of intensity can be further defined by these additional characteristics.
- Is 3.0-6.0 in the MET scale (metabolic equivalent)
- Every move you make burns off 3 to 6 times as much energy as you sit down
Exercising 4 times a week, helps your heart stay healthy because your its keeps the large central and midsized arteries functioning.
Warm-up daily
Warm-ups allow you to slowly adjust your heart to moderate-level exercise. It fires up your cardiovascular system by improving your overall blood flow which could have been compromised by the plaque buildup in the walls of your arteries. It also allows the heart vessels to dilate, leading to muscles becoming more flexible.
At the gym, it is advisable to start all of your 4 workout sessions per week with a 5-minute warm up. A good example of a step by step workout you can try at the gym is this.
- Overheard Arm Circles
- Butt Kickers
- Cross Jacks
- Toy Soldier
- Mountain Climbers
Cooldown ensures that your heart can keep flowing blood to your body even after you leave the gym. Generally, 5 minutes of cooling down at the end of the aerobic or strengthening session will be enough. You can relax your body at the gym by walking on the treadmill at a slow speed for 5 minutes.
Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise helps in the prevention of cardiovascular disease by making your heart beat faster, reducing the fatty buildup in your arteries called atherosclerosis and lowering inflammation.
First, your heartbeat is just more than a sound or set of beats. It indicates how well your heart is performing its different functions; bringing oxygen and nutrients to the whole body through the blood. Thus, since moderate level exercise raises your heartbeat to 70% of what is supposed to be your maximum heartbeat rate according to your age, it simultaneously strengthens the organ’s performance.
Second, atherosclerosis can stop your heart from bringing healthy blood to your whole body by clogging the arteries. Aerobic exercise undoes this type of damage by lowering bad cholesterol, boosting the good type, and increasing the production of nitric oxide.
Inflammation is considered the immune’s system natural response to foreign invaders and autoimmune diseases. Usually, inflammation comes out in painful symptoms such as redness and loss of joint function. When you experience these symptoms for a long time, you risk for cardiovascular disease can increase. Usually, it is because your immune system is responding to atherosclerosis in your body, one of the risks of cardiovascular diseases.
To make aerobic exercise effective for your health, you should do it at a moderate level and for 30 minutes at least. Some of these are:
- Treadmill
- Cycling
- Rowing
Weightlifting
While aerobic exercise helps your arteries get better, weightlifting makes it easier for blood to flow to your limbs and lower high blood pressure which is a risk for cardiovascular disease.
To make weightlifting effective at protecting your heart against disease, it is advisable for you to first do it 2-3 times per week. You can do it on days you don’t do aerobic exercises. Second, during each of those sessions, you should perform six exercises targeting the muscles in your chest, back, shoulders, arms, lower back, abdominals, hips/thighs, and calves. Third, you should do each specific exercise for one set with 8 repetitions.
At the same time, lifting weights will also help improve your core fitness in the Philippines.
Attend group classes with friends
Stress is a big reason people suffer from cardiovascular diseases, and an efficient way of reducing the stress you feel is by going to gym classes on topics such as core fitness in the Philippines with friends. When you are with exercising with a group, your stress levels could possibly lower by 26 percent, compared to if you did the whole thing alone.
Key Takeaway
The gym can be a great place to strengthen your heart and protect it from cardiovascular disease in different ways. It is essential that you take care of your self by keeping your body moving. By following all of these steps, you will overall reduce your risk of a heart disease.