603 living / health
Reps for Your Heart Pump up your muscles for better heart health by Karen A. Jamrog / illustration by Victoria Marcelino
A
erobic exercise has long been one of the mainstays for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. But research in recent years has examined the role that strength training can play in heart health, and it turns out that pumping iron does more than boost biceps and tone thighs. It also fortifies the heart. For sure, aerobic exercise such as running, walking or biking is an excellent way to help safeguard heart health, but if you want the best approach for cardiovascular fitness, don’t neglect strengthening exercises. Strength training — whether it comes though lifting dumbbells or barbells, using weight machines at a gym, or relying on body weight and gravity to provide resistance à la push-ups — delivers many of the same 92
nhmagazine.com | January/February 2021
benefits that aerobic exercise does: It helps to protect and enhance cardiovascular health, improve mood and sleep, and assist with weight management, for example. But the increase in muscle mass that comes with strength training conveys special benefits, boosting cardiovascular health in part by changing metabolism, which is the
way the body converts food into energy. “We see as the muscles grow in size and metabolic capacity, as they improve, they do a better job using blood sugar [or] glucose,” says Jonathan Eddinger, M.D., F.A.C.C., a cardiologist-lipidologist at Catholic Medical Center’s New England Heart and Vascular Institute in Manchester. “Particularly in a diabetic or prediabetic or somebody who has [risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes], strength training is very, very powerful in terms of improving that metabolism so that the ability to use the sugar is improved.” Left untreated, elevated blood sugar can damage blood vessels, vital organs and nerves, and raise the risk of heart disease, stroke and a number of dangerous complications. Strength training over time can improve insulin sensitivity and blood glucose levels, and change body composition to one that has less fat and more muscle, which reduces a person’s risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, improves diabetes in those who already have the condition, and lowers blood pressure. The metabolic changes that occur with strength training also mean you’ll burn more calories even when at rest and be better protected against harmful inflammation in the body. People who are obese, have diabetes, or have multiple risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes “typically have more inflammation than somebody who doesn’t have those conditions,” Eddinger says, “and as you treat those conditions, the inflammation will get better. If you treat those conditions with exercise, which we think is probably one of the greatest medications — one of the greatest therapies for those conditions — you see not only the condition improve, but the inflammation improve with them.” And, as it builds muscle mass and stamina, strength training makes the heart more efficient. “If you gain muscle and strength, your heart won’t have to pump as hard, to work as hard, whether you’re working
“If you gain muscle and strength, your heart won’t have to pump as hard, to work as hard, whether you’re working out or walking to your mailbox.” — Chad Lawrence, A.P.R.N.
