Long-distance hazards

Just a few weeks ago, three men suffered heart attacks while running the Los Angeles Marathon. Two of them died.

Tragic, yes, but it doesn’t surprise me. I have been warning my patients for years about the dangers of long-distance running.

In today’s Health Alert, I’ll show you how to avoid this unnecessary heart risk. What type of exercise strengthens your heart and also increases the volume of your lungs?

The Basics of Heart-Healthy Exercise

Nature molded 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, as in a marathon, for example, you force your heart to sacrifice strength, power, and reserve capacity.

Yet strength, power, and reserve capacity are exactly what your heart needs most to meet the demands of the real world.

There is only one way to strengthen 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 found that the key to exercise is not length or endurance. It is intensity. The more energy a person exerts during exercise, the lower the risk of heart disease.

High intensity exercise can also help you live longer. Another Harvard study compared vigorous and light exercise. Those who performed exercise that is more vigorous had a lower risk of death than those who performed less vigorous exercise.

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 a little. My favorites are swimming, cycling, running, and ellipticals.

I switch my patients between them to keep the fun and reduce the chance of “overuse injuries.” What you wear will depend on your fitness level. 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 heart strengthening program. I call it PACE® to progressively accelerate cardiopulmonary effort. It has produced dramatic results for my patients.

PACE® focuses on short bursts of exercise. I call them intervals. Break your exercise down into little tips, then gradually increase the intensity as your conditioning improves. When you do this, it is more enjoyable, more effective, and safer than longer, lower intensity exercise.

Here’s a five interval routine that you can start right away:

Int 1 Rest Int 2 Rest Int 3 Rest Int 4 Rest Int 5 Rest

2 min 2 min 90 sec 2 min 60 sec 2 min 40 sec 2 min 30 sec 2 min

Do the first interval at a low to moderate intensity. Then rest. But when you “rest”, I don’t mean you stop. Your rest interval should be slow and smooth, as if you were walking.

In the second interval, increase the intensity. If you are on a stationary bike, for example, you can increase the resistance to make pedaling more difficult.

As the duration of the interval decreases, the intensity should increase. By the time you do the thirty second interval, you should give it everything you have.

If you haven’t exercised in a while, go slowly at first. As you improve, give yourself an extra challenge each time you exercise.

For your good health,

Al Sears, MD

PS: it is also a great way to burn fat. After four to six weeks, you will see that your belly fat begins to disappear.