Health Alert 309
“Dr. Sears, my internal medicine doctor wants me to exercise for an hour a day. Sometimes I get so tired, I feel like I’m going to collapse. How could this be good for me?”
This patient recently asked me this right after I had read about a man who died while driving back from a 2,400 mile bike ride. I began thinking if that’s not enough cardio to protect your heart what will?
Many of my patients report this bad advice. That’s too bad. Traditional cardio actually makes your heart and lungs smaller. Today I’ll show you why PACE® exercise will energize your heart. You can do it in as little as twelve minutes a day.
This man died of a heart attack shortly after riding his bicycle across the continent.(1) He reportedly undertook this extreme durational cardio to re-strengthen his heart.
Yet I’ve been saying for years, long duration cardio will not protect you from heart disease or heart attack. It actually makes your heart smaller and weaker.
To protect and energize your heart, you need to build your heart’s reserve capacity.
Have you ever noticed that long distance runners look thin, weak and out of shape? Watch any marathon on TV and you’ll see what I mean. To compare, watch a track and field event and see how muscular and fit the sprinters look.
The interval training the sprinters practice boosts your heart’s reserve capacity. This is what you heart needs when it gets stressed. A heart attack will hit you when your heart needs extra energy but has nowhere to go. A small heart, streamlined from years of jogging will not have the extra capacity for stressful situations.
The good news is that interval training takes as little as twelve minutes a day. You can do it on any machine at the gym. You can even run or bike outdoors. Start at a slow easy pace. Then pick up the intensity for two minutes. Afterwards, go back to a slow, easy speed. Repeat this process and increase the intensity each time you do a faster interval.
As you become better conditioned, you’ll be able to exercise in short bursts of intense intervals. After each interval, you’ll actually feel yourself start to pant. This means you’re doing it right. When you pant, you are asking your lungs for more oxygen than they can provide in the moment. This is an oxygen deficit.
This tells your body to increase your lung volume. It also builds the critical reserve capacity you need to prevent heart attacks.
Here’s an added bonus: PACE® exercise is your most reliable way to burn fat. Not only will you protect your heart and lungs, your fat will melt away.
For more information on PACE®, see Health Alerts 28, 58, 147 and 270.
To your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
(1) Associated Press. Heart patient dies after 2,400-mile ride. www.cnn.com. May 2, 2005.