Along with eating right and maintaining a good diet, exercise has huge benefits for a heart, both in terms of preventing problems and helping it recover strength again after suffering from heart disease. And that exercise doesn’t need to be complicated. Exercise as simple as brisk walking at least three to four times a week for 60 minutes can trigger a significant improvement of unhealthy blood pressure alone. The biggest problem people have, however, aside from getting started, it how to exercise both effectively and safely.

Age Makes a Difference in Exercise

While in our 20s exercising comes easy without significant work up, it could be a very different story some two decades later. Worn joints, weight gain, lack of movement with sedentary work and a lot more make it a lot harder to exercise later on. Add another decade, and it gets even harder. Sprinting and big bench presses might not be on the menu anymore. It may be enough instead to regularly jog to keep the heart rate up for a sufficient amount of time.

Aerobic Exercise for Heart Strengthening

The heart is a muscle which normally works every day, pumping on a consistent basis. When the body needs to move faster or is under stress, the heart rate increases. In a lot of ways, it works like an engine.

However, even an engine has to be maintained to work reliably. That maintenance comes with eating right, avoiding the things that make the heart work far too hard, and exercising the heart enough so that it can handle more and more as needed. Dr. Ian Weisberg notes this resilience is what helps the heart fend off future risks when stress levels or blood pressure goes up again in the future.

Aerobic exercise is one of the most effective ways at improving cardiovascular strength. This comes through greater processing of oxygen, greater blood circulation ability, and an increased ability to sustain higher heart rates longer.

Typical aerobic exercise starts with brisk walking, easy on the body and a great way to start if one hasn’t exercised in a long time. There’s no pain on the joints and the risk of pulling or tearing a muscle is minimal.

From this starting point, one can then also engage in swimming, cycling, jogging, tennis, ellipticals and more. The point is to use an exercise that increases the breathing rate for a sustained period. How long? It should be 30 minutes daily, a minimum of five days weekly.

Don’t Expect Miracles Overnight

Ian Weisberg reminds readers that the benefits of exercise happen over time. But a few weeks of exercise can improve one’s breathing, sleep and digestion very quickly. Within a few months, minor weight loss occurs, the heart works better with exercise, a person feels more energy, and resilience increases. By the time a year has passed, the change one feels and realizes will be tremendous, but it takes getting there one day at a time.