By: Chloe Lisowski
Why is aerobic exercise, or also known as cardio exercise good for your heart? Aerobic exercise helps get your heart pumping and can strengthen your heart muscle and blood vessels (Levine, 2021). Aerobic exercise helps improve the flow of oxygen throughout the body and can lower blood pressure and cholesterol (Levine, 2021). Along with that, aerobic exercise can reduce the risk for heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, and some kinds of cancers (Levine, 2021). Other benefits of aerobic exercise includes lowers blood pressure, regulates blood pressure, reduces chronic pain, improves sleep, regulates weight, decreases stress, strengthens immune system, and boosts mood (Marcin, 2020). The American Heart Association and doctors recommend people to do aerobic exercise to help with the prevention of heart disease, especially when someone is at risk for heart disease (Marcin, 2020). Aerobic exercise can keep your arteries clear by increasing the good cholesterol and lowering the bad cholesterol levels (Marcin, 2020).
Different types of aerobic exercises are running, walking, swimming, cycling, playing tennis, dancing like Zumba, and jump rope. Professionals recommend that people should get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week (Marcin, 2020). If doing 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, that is shooting for 30 minutes for 5 days of the week. Walking and swimming are examples of more moderate exercise, while more vigorous exercise can include running and cycling (Marcin, 2020).
In an article posted by Doctor Ben Levin, he talks about a study published on patients who were at risk for developing heart disease and had the patients exercise regularly for a year to see the improvement (Levine, 2021). The improvements after the year showed how the dedicated exercise training helped improve the elasticity of the heart, which shows exercise can reverse some of the issues seen from diseases that cause heart problems (Levine, 2021).
Overall, there are many benefits that come from aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is also not the only exercise that can be healthy for the heart. Do you think you’ll be increasing your aerobic exercise time to better your health?
References:
Levine, B. (2021). The ‘best’ cardio workout for a healthy heart. UT Southwestern Medical
Marcin, A. (2020). What Are the Benefits of Aerobic Exercise? Healthline.