Heart-Healthy Exercise Guidelines

Exercising regularly is one of the best things you can to do to prevent heart disease and several other important medical problems, and to improve your chances of remaining vital well into your old age.

• Read about the benefits of exercise.

How Much Exercise Do You Really Need?

It turns out that you can gain most of the important benefits of exercise with a fairly modest adjustment to your lifestyle.

If you are currently healthy, "enough" exercise is 30 to 60 minutes, four to six times per week. You can perform this exercise during short periods throughout the day -- and thus integrate the exercise into your normal routine. The exercise can take the form of walking briskly (try parking several blocks from your workplace), climbing stairs (skip the elevator), and doing active yard work, as well as more "traditional" exercise activities such as jogging or bicycling.

The intensity of your exercise is adequate if you feel slightly breathless, or begin to sweat, or begin to feel fatigued. If you pay attention to these signs it is not necessary for you to aim for a target heart rate.

Resistance exercise (i.e., using weights), is also helpful to cardiovascular health. You should try to do 10 to 15 repetitions of each exercise, using muscles in the arms and shoulders, trunk and back, and hips and legs, two or three times per week.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) released updated guidelines for physical activity for Americans. These recommendations are quite judicious and easy to follow, and include advice for children, healthy adults, and older people.

• Read about the DHHS exercise guidelines.

Is There A Benefit To Doing Even More Exercise?

While these simple guidelines are enough to produce significant health benefits, performing even more regular exercise can increase the gains. For instance, studies in distance runners show that running more miles per week is associated with greater increases in HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) and greater reductions in triglycerides and body fat.

• Read about exercise and HDL cholesterol.

But again, you don't have to become an exercise fanatic to gain most of the benefits of exercise. With a little work and a little planning, most people can incorporate an adequate amount of exercise into their regular routine, without disrupting their work or family lives.

• Read about beginning an exercise program.

• Read about exercising if you already have heart disease.

_Sources:

_{Thompson, PD, Buchner, D, Pina, IL. Exercise and physical activity in the prevention and treatment of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease: a statement from the Council on Clinical Cardiology (Subcommittee on Exercise, Rehabilitation, and Prevention) and the Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism (Subcommittee on Physical Activity). Circulation 2003; 107:3109.}