The Most Effective Type of Exercise?

When it comes to getting off the sofa and moving around, anything is better than nothing. But experts have found that not all exercise is created equal.

When it comes to heart health, cardiovascular - or aerobic - exercise is what you need to focus on, with stretching and weight training playing a supporting role.

Good forms of cardiovascular exercise include swimming, which is an overall body workout and which really gets your heart pumping; walking, when done with purpose; and running, which  is well known for its overall health benefits and has a great impact on heart health in particular.

If you prefer to exercise at a gym there are a great number of aerobic classes to choose from, including spinning, aerobics, Tae-bo and many more. You can also join a dance group and learn salsa or ballroom dancing, both of which are extremely good cardiovascular exercises and just so happen to be great fun.

The American Heart Association advises that whichever option you choose, to be effective you must do it regularly, three to four times a week, for a minimum of 30 minutes and it must increase your heart rate for the duration. You can also break your exercise sessions down to 10 minutes three times a day, if necessary.

And while weightlifting may make you look good on the outside, the experts advise that unless it is done in conjunction with aerobic exercise it will not have much of an impact on heart health.

Don't forget; The heart is a muscle, so the stronger it is, the more effective it will be in pumping blood around the body, improving oxygen transport and circulation. 

And the more physical activity we do the better chance we have of lowering our blood pressure, and the less pressure there is on the heart the healthier it will be.

Run a mile to check future heart health

The long-term benefits of exercise are common knowledge, but if you needed concrete motivation look no further: new research has found that a simple test can predict future heart health - how fast can you run a mile?

Traditional indicators of heart health in later life include cholesterol and blood pressure checks, but researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and the Cooper Institute in Dallas analysed tens of thousands of middle-aged participants and found that heart disease risk increases markedly for every minute longer it takes you to run a mile.

Dr. Jarett D. Berry, assistant professor of internal medicine and cardiology at Southwestern Medical School and a co-author of two papers outlining the research results says that the exercise you do in your 40s is highly relevant to heart disease risk in your 80s. “In both these studies, how fast you can run in midlife is very strongly associated with heart disease risk when you’re old," he confirms.

While some experts caution against risk evaluation based on just one type of exercise, and the researchers behind these recent studies do admit that more data is needed before mile-times can be used accurately, it is generally agreed that mid-life fitness is a good indicator of future health.

No recommended times have been released yet, but initial study data shows that a man in his 50s who can run a mile in 8 minutes or less, or a woman who can do it in 9 minutes or less, shows a high level of fitness. A 9-minute mile for a man and 10:30 for a woman are signs of moderate fitness; men who can’t run better than a 10-minute mile, and women slower than 12 minutes, fall into the low-fitness category.

Read the study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology here