How not to harm the heart and blood vessels by exercising in the gym

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Any diet, including a sports diet, if it is composed incorrectly, can adversely affect the general condition of the body, including the most important muscle - the heart. How not to harm yourself by fighting with kilograms, we will tell you in our article.

Overweight people who lead a sedentary lifestyle are usually at risk for cardiovascular disease. But for some exercising athletes who want to get things done too quickly, the gym can do harm rather than benefit.

Diet

The first thing to remember is that any diet is a harmonious balance of nutrients. What does it mean? When losing weight, you do not need to completely give up carbohydrates and fats. When gaining mass, do not forget about fiber, plenty of water and vegetable oils. A balanced diet, rather than a simple calorie cut, distinguishes a healthy athlete from a person who is detrimental to their health.

The first place to start with dietary restrictions is to reduce your intake of trans fats. It is them, and not, say, the beneficial lipids found in nuts, olives, flax or sunflower seeds.

Why are trans fats so bad? They increase the level of low density lipoprotein (LDL), which transport "bad" cholesterol into the bloodstream, which leads to an increased risk of atherosclerosis. The second good reason to avoid trans fats is that eating trans fats significantly increases your risk of developing diabetes.

At the other extreme is the high-protein, high-fat trending diet. If your body traditionally uses fats as fuel and you digest fatty foods better than carbohydrates, no problem. Otherwise, too much fat in the diet (over 50% of the daily calorie content), even if useful, leads to a decrease in the production of nitric oxide, which, in turn, leads to problems with blood pressure.

Balance your diet based on age, exercise, body weight, and goals.

On average, the diet of athletes should consist of 35–40% proteins with a complete amino acid profile, 25–30% of healthy fats and 30–40% of complex carbohydrates. In this case, the given values vary in each individual case.

Physical activity

It would seem that physical activity cannot harm the heart, but, on the contrary, will only turn it into a powerful blood pump. This is true, but with some caveats. According to research from the American College of Sports Medicine, to maintain a healthy heart, it is enough to spend 150 minutes a week in moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes a week in high-intensity training.

Those who play sports professionally are automatically at risk: if you train for more than one hour three times a week, you need to set aside a separate day, completely dedicated to cardio loads.

The Mayo Clinic Proceedings magazine cites a study that claims overuse of intense exercise can be detrimental to heart health. This is why doing CrossFit daily or doing weightlifting at a high heart rate is more harmful than beneficial all the time.

Loads must be alternated. Even if now 3-5 hard strength training a week or regular overcoming ultramarathon distances seems to be effective, after a few years of work at this pace, the body's reserves will come to an end.

Dilute several consecutive strength workouts with cardio, and vice versa. Above all, don't be afraid to try new disciplines throughout the year or in the offseason if you are a competing athlete.

Visit to the doctor

Do not be afraid of doctors. Cardiologists are not dentists with drills from the 1980s. Get tested, do cardiograms, check blood for hemoglobin and hormone levels - there is nothing more important than preventing cardiovascular diseases. Fortunately, most of them can be prevented in time, and a well-designed course of exercise will allow you to live a full life even with congenital pathologies such as mitral valve prolapse.

Set your blood pressure rate (the once ubiquitous "cosmonaut pressure" 120 to 80 may be the absolute norm for some or a sign of early hypertension for others), then measure it every day, remembering to monitor your pulse. Take such control measurements for a course of one to two weeks every three to four months in order to better study your body and understand how the state of your cardiovascular system has changed over a specified period of time.

Keep track of what appears on your plate, how you feel after exercise and what the blood pressure monitor and heart rate monitor readings say about your condition. Preventing illness is always easier than curing it.