Physical Fitness and Heart Health

Physical fitness is important to the overall functioning of the mind and body, it helps us to stay healthy, and to perform our daily task efficiently while still maintaining an energy reserve for pleasurable activities.

Good physical fitness allows our mind to stay sharp and enhances our ability to think clearly. Maintaining a proper level of physical fitness contributes greatly to reducing the development of heart disease, the number one cause of death annually.

Safe Physical Fitness

Before beginning any physical fitness regiment, it is important to consult your health care provider to ensure that you are capable of participating without injury, especially if you are over 35 years old, have been inactive, and have doubts about your level of physical fitness.

Physical Fitness Goals

The first step in outlining a physical fitness regiment is to set fitness goals and make a commitment to achieve them. Whether you are interested in weight loss, improving your cardiovascular efficiency or developing muscle and muscle tone; your results are a direct reflection of your effort. Don’t just make a goal; make the time to fulfill that goal. Be realistic about your l fitness goals. It is better to start small and add to set your fitness goals then start too high, get discouraged, and quit.

Improving your Physical Fitness

To obtain levels of improvement in your overall fitness levels, you must exert yourself at higher levels than you normally would when your body is at rest or during your daily activities.

Fitness and Muscle Mass

If your physical fitness goal is increased muscle mass, you must target the desired muscle or muscle groups and work them for a minimum of twenty minutes – two to three times per week. A good circuit training routine that involves weight lifting with minimal resting time between sets is effective. Building muscle is a process that takes time and dedication. You must dedicate yourself to working out regularly and increase the resistance as your muscles grow stronger to succeed at this fitness goal.

Physical Fitness and Endurance

Endurance related fitness goals require a minimum workout time of twenty minutes – two to three times a week. The key to increasing muscular endurance is to work the desired muscle group continuously for the specified period of time, increasing that time as your level of physical fitness increases.

Physical Fitness and Cardiovascular Health

Cardiovascular fitness is achieved by maintaining your target heart rate and maintaining that level for 20 minutes or longer, 3 or more times a week. One of the simplest ways of determining your target heart rate is to subtract your age from 220 and multiply that by 70%. An example of the target heart rate for a 35 year old would be (220 – 35) * .70 = 129 beats per minute. Checking your pulse for ten seconds and multiplying by 6 will determine your heart rate during vigorous activity. By maintaining a heart rate of 129 beats per minute for a minimum of 20 minutes, a 35 year old person would be improving their cardiovascular conditioning.

Physical Fitness and Weight Loss

Physical fitness programs are a wonderful way to lose weight. Our body uses the calories in the food we eat as energy to perform daily task. If we take in fewer calories than our body needs, our body will begin to break up fat stores for energy, leading to weight loss and improved physical fitness. If we take in more calories than our body needs in a day, the calories will be converted to fat and stored for future use.

These are things that you can do to avoid the risk of developing heart disease and begin living a healthy lifestyle.

• Diet and proper nutrition eating heart healthy foods such as soy, almonds and nuts that are known to lower cholesterol levels.

• Losing weight and keeping the weight off through any type of diet program that fits your personality. and start losing weight the healthy way.

• Exercising doing cardiovascular exercises and resistance exercises. Don't wait for a heart attack to occur before deciding to exercise. If You need advice on how to start you can ask the advice of online personal trainers, they can instruct you on what activities are considered to be a proper aerobic exercise for heart health.

• Quitting smoking

• Reducing stress through various relaxation techniques

• Controlling your blood pressure, through diets exercises, relaxation, vitamins and medications if the need arises

• Reducing your cholesterol levels through exercise, vitamins, natural cures, and statins if prescribed to do so by your doctor.

Why wait till its too late, begin living a heart healthy lifestyle now. and start doing aerobic exercises for heart health.