A little can go a long way when it comes to heart health. With exercise recommendations somewhat complicated, saying x minutes of vigorous exercise and x minutes of moderate exercise, and x days of strength workouts and x days of aerobic exercise per week, it can get a bit overwhelming. As someone well-versed in physical activity recommendations from working in the health promotion space, specifically around physical activity and nutrition, even I don’t track my minutes in each type of exercise I do because it’s just too cumbersome. As much as I’m a proponent of exercise being important for health, physically and mentally, I also promote a simple attitude toward exercise: do what you can, when you can.
I live close to a cross-fit gym and a lake with a walking path around it. I see people going beast mode and running like the wind all the time. I also see people slowly, slowly jogging, what my old soccer coach would call “the walk and bounce” as well as people just plain walking. All those people moving are doing good by their heart. All movement counts, despite what fitness ads tell you. The fitness industry and marketing companies do a good job at making the average (i.e., non-beast) person feel that unless they’re going all out in terms of exercise, then there is little benefit. And that is not the case.
The idea that you have to do super intense exercise to get heart health benefits is a myth. Really, any kind of movement that gets your heart rate up is beneficial. Take heart (😉) in knowing that easy or light exercise is valuable too.
Getting your heart rate up through exercise, conventional or unconventional, is good for heart health. It improves the heart’s ability to draw oxygen from the blood, which means the heart doesn’t have to work so dang hard to pump blood to your muscles (Johns Hopkins Medicine, n.d.). To be clear, putting your heart to work every now and then doesn’t need to mean going beast mode. Heck, taking a walk around the block (what I like to call “block walk”) will increase your heart rate. So will taking the stairs, vacuuming, dancing (my go-to song is “Can’t Stop the Feeling”…really, listen/watch that), doing sexy time, and jumping up and down because you’re going stir crazy at home.
Sure, intense bouts of exercise do you good, but easy exercise is nothing to look down upon. Beast mode or I’m-just-gonna-move-for-a-sec mode are both fair game when it comes to doing something good for your heart. Little bits add up, especially when we redefine exercise as any movement that gets your blood flowing faster. And since it’s heart health month in a time that begs for creative ways to stay entertained and be motivated to move, here are a few unconventional, simple ways to get your heart rate up just a little bit:
- Do a wall sit while you reheat your leftovers.
- Hold a superman pose (belly down, lift arms and legs) or banana position (belly up, hold up legs and arms to make a banana shape) while lying on the couch.
- Punch the air (imagine COVID-19 had a face) for a minute.
- Get someone or something to make you laugh. This laughing chain video gets me.
- Knead dough.
- Skip to the mailbox, or for a block of your block walk.
- Dance more—no one’s watching anyway, and if they are, they likely already know you and you’re weirdness (if you dance like me) won’t be a surprise.
When we lower the bar for “beneficial” exercise, we lower the barrier to heart health. That is, we don’t have to climb a wall military style to get to healthy heart land. Every bit of hearty movement counts for something if we just do it.
Reference
Johns Hopkins Medicine. (n.d.). 7 Benefits of Exercise. Health. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/7-heart-benefits-of-exercise
