Heart Healthy Weekend Adventures

ByKevin Denholm

An active lifestyle is important when it comes to maintaining heart health. During the week a lack of free time can make it difficult for people to be as active as they would like. While jogging or working out at the gym are convenient ways to get a heart healthy workout, they can become boring and routine. The weekends, on the other hand, open up the door for more exciting activities. Turning free time into an adventure can be an amazing way to have an awesome time and a heart healthy workout all wrapped into one.

Volunteer Tourism
People who love to make a difference in the world can combine their love of philanthropy with the pursuit of healthy exercise, by volunteering while on vacation. Weekend volunteer tourism, or Voluntourism, is the perfect type of activity for pursuing all these goals at once. Activities such as aiding in the construction of homes for poor communities or in areas devastated by natural disasters, are great opportunities for exercise, burning fat and muscle toning. And of course few things are more truly awesome than the good feeling of making the world a better place for others.

The Historical Combat Re-Enactments
The most extreme form of heart-healthy weekend excursion is only for the truly dedicated and hard core athletes. These include the mock combat games held by the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and various Civil War re-enactment events, which are typically held on weekends, although some SCA battles such as the Pennsic Wars can last for two weeks. These mock battles are not for casual participants as they require a great deal of training, preparation and discipline, however there are few things that are more wicked awesome when it comes to entertainment, not to mention the potential for weight loss and muscle toning.

Skiing and Snowboarding
A weekend trip to the snow awaits heart-conscious vacationers during the winter season. Snow sports activities can be tailored to match any level of fitness, from the bunny slopes for beginners to the steep and sometimes narrow expert slopes for the advanced sports enthusiasts. Skiing strengthens the heart muscles, making it an ideal heart healthy excursion.

Water Sports
Canoeing and white water rafting are two highly intense weekend adventures that can have major heart health benefits. While these types of weekend adventures are truly awesome, they require a lot of training and preparation, which is itself a heart-healthy activity. Still, there are a variety of clubs and companies that cater to weekend adventurers, and that can help people get the most fun and health benefits out of these activities.

Hiking
A heart healthy weekend adventure can be started simply by finding a trail and taking a weekend hike during warm weather months. Most cities are within driving or biking distance of at least one good hiking trail. This kind of weekend getaway is one of the cheapest and easiest activities to plan in advance, and because it is a form of aerobic exercise, it offers great benefits in the form of muscle toning and improved cardiovascular health.

Regardless of what weekend adventure is waiting, it is important for people to make certain that their heart and health is up to the task. Like any activity or exercise, adventurers should check with their doctor before participating in exercises that will give their heart a workout.

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Exercising With Your Heart

Government and numerous private studies have shown us that over the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States and rates remain high. More than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7%) and approximately 17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are obese. We are encouraged to exercise a minimum of thirty minutes a day at least five days a week just to maintain a healthy life style and current body proportions.

This article is about your heart and your health. Your heart is the most important muscle in your body! Each year 500,000 Americans die of heart disease and approximately half of them are women. As early as age 45, a man's risk of heart disease begins to rise and related body results become paramount.

With that stated, it is very clear to me that my daily exercise routine certainly has to be highly efficient to get the most out of my time and efforts. For me, that routine is a combination of 40% muscle training and 60% cardio training for each daily workout. Simple "free weight" exercises cover my muscle training sessions while my cardio sessions are divided up with the treadmill, swimming, biking, and indoor cycle workouts. Cardio or cardiovascular exercise is any activity that involves the large muscles in the body, raises the heart rate, and is continuous and rhythmic.

For the past eleven years I have been an indoor cycle instructor and very involved with the understanding of how the human body best reacts to cardio workouts. Way too many times I have encountered people exercising at an "all out effort" whereby their hearts were racing, sweat gushing out from every pour of their body and total exhaustion the primary goal. This technique is completely wrong and inefficient. An efficient cardio workout is not complex at all and only requires an understanding of how your heart fits into your exercise workout sessions.

To begin this study you will need to have access to a heart rate monitor. It does not have to be an expensive model and usually the cheaper ones have a larger, digital read out that is very handy during your sessions. Prices will vary but I am sure that you can find a reliable heart rate monitor for as little as $25. Having and using a heart rate monitor allows you to measure exercise intensity independently of what activity is being performed by focusing on heart rate as the measure of exercise intensity.

Heart rate is measured by finding the pulse of the body. This pulse rate can be measured at any point on the body where the artery's pulsation is transmitted to the surface by pressuring it with the index and middle fingers. We will need to know our heart rate at multiple times during our workouts and having a heart rate monitor makes this very easy to read. Heart rate is the number of heartbeats per unit of time, typically expressed as beats per minute (BPM). Heart rate can vary as the body's need to absorb oxygen and excrete carbon dioxide changes, such as during exercise or even sleep.

The primary goal of cardio training is to lower your resting heart rate. Your resting heart rate is the heart pumping the lowest amount of blood you need because you're not exercising. The resting heart rate is a person's heart rate when they are at rest, that is lying down but awake, and not having recently exerted themselves. The maximum heart rate is the highest heart rate an individual can safely achieve through exercise stress. Studies that I have done, point out that an individual's maximum heart rate number generally does not change. For example, my maximum heart rate is 172 beats per minute. This is the number whereby as my exercise session increases in intensity, my heart rate begins to rise. As I approach 172 beats per minute, I begin to get out of breath and feel like I just cannot go any faster or harder. A person will not increase that particular number nor decrease that maximum heart rate number (disregarding sicknesses and drugs). It is your reference point which is used to establish exercise zones. Furthermore, exercising using these individual zones and understanding these zones results in highly efficient workout sessions and subsequently, results in actually lowering an individual's resting heart rate. Having a lower resting heart rate simply means that your heart, the most important muscle in your body, is beating fewer times per minute. A second benefit of exercising knowing your heart rate zones, is that you will channel your workouts to maximize fat burning. Maximizing fat burning puts us right on the front line in the national battle against obesity. By exercising at sufficiently intense levels, you can overload your cardiovascular system. During rest, your body adapts to strengthen the cardiovascular system. Over time, your heart becomes more efficient at delivering the oxygen and fuel required by the muscles to maintain this higher level of performance.

To become more efficient as you train (maximize your training time and boost your physical results), you will first need to establish what your particular maximum heart rate is. There are a number of ways to do this. The best way is with a visit to a doctor who can perform very accurate tests to determine this key number. You can get really, really close to what that number is by using a step test, jogging in place or riding a stationary bike and recording the numbers of three or four "time trials" and then computing the average number as your maximum beats per minute for your particular training purposes. Please note that I do not encourage computing your maximum HR number using some formula based on age. After all, everyone is at a different level of fitness regardless of age.

Finally, use that maximum HR number (BPM) to create your exercise zones. A heart rate training zone is a range that defines the upper and lower limits of training intensities Compute your training zones as follows:

Zone One - (Warm up) --- 50 - 60% of maximum HR: The easiest zone and probably the best zone for people just starting a fitness program. It can also be used as a warm up and cool down. This zone has been shown to help decrease body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol. It also decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and has a low risk of injury. 85% of calories burned in this zone are fats!

Zone Two - (Fat Burning) --- 60 - 70% of maximum HR: This zone provides the same benefits as Zone One, but is more intense and burns more total calories. The percent of fat calories is still 85%.

Zone Three - (Endurance Training) --- 70 - 80% of maximum HR: This training zone will improve your cardiovascular and respiratory system AND increase the size and strength of your heart. This is the preferred zone if you are training for an endurance event. More calories are burned with 50% from fat. This type of exercise strengthens the heart and lungs and improves the body's ability to use oxygen. Aerobic exercise has the most benefits for your heart. Over time, aerobic exercise can help decrease your heart rate and blood pressure and improve your breathing.

Zone Four or the Anaerobic Zone - (Performance Training) --- 80 - 90% of maximum HR: Benefits of this zone include an improved VO2 maximum (the highest amount of oxygen one can consume during exercise) and thus an improved cardiorespiratory system, and a higher lactate tolerance ability which means your endurance will improve and you will be able to fight fatigue better. This is a high intensity zone burning more calories, 15 % from fat.

Anaerobic simply means "without oxygen". In this zone, you are "out of breath" with a very fast heart beat. This is not a zone that you exercise or stay in too long. Start with fifteen or twenty seconds. Your target and more efficient exercise zone is zone three. This type of exercise strengthens the heart and lungs and improves the body's ability to use oxygen. Aerobic exercise has the most benefits for your heart.

Over time, aerobic exercise can help decrease your heart beats per minute and blood pressure and improve your breathing. Your body and cells are most efficient in this zone for producing energy. Producing energy burns fat. And that... is the bottom line. Exercise efficiently and exercise with your heart.

http://GeorgeEckenrode.com - George Eckenrode

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How To Have A Healthy Heart

ByDamon J Barlow

The old saying goes "if you don't have your health, you don't have anything at all and this is very true. You can have everything you want but if you are too sick or incapacitated to enjoy it, it's as if you have nothing. Being healthy allows for a long life of activity and enjoyment. Bad health can cause you to wake up every day feeling to sick to do anything or enjoy life.

There are many things one can do to remain healthy and there are several parts of the body that should get a little more attention that others in order to maintain optimal health. A healthy heart is very important to overall health and well-being while an unhealthy heart can cause a host of health problems including pain, trouble breathing, headaches and even sudden death in the form of a heart attack.

Some people are born with health problems but that does not mean they have to be destined to a life of ill-health. There are many things that they can do to be as healthy as possible and there are many things that people without heart problems can do to maintain a healthy heart throughout life. Diet is an important factor in all aspects of overall health but it is particularly important for heart health. Foods like flax seeds, olive oil, grains and some dairy are important things to have in your diet.

Foods that contain vitamin E, protein and essential omega oils are also important. Although, it is not necessary to completely cut out unhealthy foods, it is important to reduce your intake of them. Another very important step in having a healthier heart is breaking certain bad habits. Smoking, excessive drinking of alcohol, excessive caffeine intake, not getting enough sleep or too much sleep and doing drugs are all bad for the heart. One of the most important things anyone can do to maintain a healthy heart is to exercise everyday.

Make it a habit and stick to your schedule as much as possible. Incorporate stretches, weight training, cardio and yoga as part of your exercise regimen. Stress is another killer and not only does it affect the heart in a big way, it affects overall health. Try to reduce stress as much as possible by taking time every day to relax. Seek counseling if needed and take time out to enjoy life as much as possible.

Reducing your cholesterol is important to having a healthy heart. Here is one such company that is looking for natural ways to lower cholesterol.

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Benefits Of Exercise On The Heart

We all know regular exercise is good for the body... now new research finds could help prevent heart disease even when you're carrying more weight than ideal.

Fitness level may, in fact, be more important than the number on the scale. No one is saying that being careful about weight gain isn't still important to keeping your heart healthy, but so is keeping fit according to the study authors.

Doctors have said for years that being heavy and inactive has a profound impact on your heart disease risk. This latest study is looks at how changes in your fitness level, your weight, or both impacts the development of disease risk factors later on. The study authors allowed for fitness level and weight to be altered for each other - something not accounted for in many studies.

The research involved following 3,148 healthy adult subjects who were already enrolled in another study who were given three medical exams between the years 1979 to 2006.

The team searched for three heart health risk factors - hypertension, high cholesterol levels or metabolic syndrome (a group of symptoms that up your risk for diabetes as well as heart disease).

The fitness level of the study subjects was measured using a treadmill test; weight was assessed using BMI and skin fold testing.

When the study ended, 752 subjects had been diagnosed with hypertension, 426 met the criteria for metabolic syndrome and another 597 were suffering from high cholesterol.

Those who either maintained (or improved) their fitness level had a reduced risk of having any of the 3 risk factors. The participants who kept their fitness level the same had a 24% lower risk of hypertension, a 38% lower chance of metabolic syndrome, as well as a 25% less chance of having high cholesterol. Those who had improved their fitness levels saw the same gains, or more.

Subjects who had gained weight were more likely to have one of the risk factors compared to those subjects who lost fat. Adding fat put the participants at a 24% higher risk of hypertension, 52% higher chance of metabolic syndrome as well as a 41% higher chance of high cholesterol.

For those who managed to maintain or improve their fitness, they were able to modify, but not eliminate, the higher risk of the extra fat. Dropping fat appeared to offset some of the increased risk of not being as fit as you once were.

The best scenario is to lose the weight and become more fit. This brings the lowest risk for all three potential troublemakers. Experts agree that if you're overweight you'd best be fit. If you can't pay attention to both healthy lifestyle choices - at least pick one.

And remember, making physical activity fun (rather than a dreaded chore) goes a long way toward having you doing it more often, and seeing the many .

FREE Bonus Secret Health Reports - For a limited time you can grab 5 FREE essential health reports from the Daily Health Bulletin. Click through now to discover more on the how much you should be doing to reap the rewards.

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