15-Minutes to a "Hundred-Year Heart"

Al Sears, MD

Most experts break exercise into 2 categories: Resistance training and �cardio.� I don�t practice either.

If you�ve been reading my writing, you know that after 20 years of working with athletes and patients, I�ve concluded that traditional �cardio� actually weakens your heart and drugs can�t possibly reverse the weakness.

Yet almost every day someone asks me, �Dr. Sears, I�m doing an hour of cardio three times a week� Why did my doctor tell me I need to take medications for my heart?�

Today I�ll show you how to avoid this dead-end trap. I�ll also clear up some of the confusion and get you started on my fast and easy system that actually works. It can keep your heart going strong for a hundred years or more.

Danger of Dropping Dead Due to Duration

Jack Kelly (brother of actress Grace Kelly) was well-conditioned for durational �cardio�. One morning he went for his usual morning jog and suddenly dropped dead in his tracks of a heart attack. He was chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

The next year at a long-distance race, I saw a man collapse to the ground clutching his chest right in front of our emergency aid station. His heart attack was so intense he couldn�t speak. I�ve never forgotten the panic in his eyes while I gave him oxygen.

We found another runner kneeling down on all fours waiting for us to help him. He had a dangerously irregular heartbeat that we usually see in older men with serious heart disease. But he was thin and young.

A few weeks ago, three guys had heart attacks while running the same Los Angeles marathon. Two of them died. This is disturbingly common.

The rate of sudden cardiac death for marathon runners is actually increased. If you�ve ever attended distance-running competitions, you may have noticed that these athletes have sunken chests. This turns out to be a critical clue to the adaptive response this exercise produces.

Why does this happen? Because running for miles � pushing for greater endurance � produces the opposite result of what you want to achieve. Instead of building heart strength, it shrinks your lungs and robs your heart of vital reserve capacity.

Intensity is the Key to Heart Healthy Exercise

Traditional �cardio� doesn�t save you from heart disease. Nature fashioned your heart to adapt to challenges. In doing so, your heart eliminates unused capacity. If you train your heart to adapt to longer intervals of �cardio,� � like in a marathon, for example � you force your heart to sacrifice strength, power and reserve capacity.

And strength, power and reserve capacity are exactly what your heart needs most. These assets allow your heart to meet real world demands.

Conversely, high intensity exercise has been shown to help you live longer. A Harvard study compared vigorous and light exercise. Those who performed exercise that is more vigorous had a lower risk of death than those who performed less vigorous exercise.

In your arms and legs, there�s only one way to build strength. And that�s to physically challenge their power. Your heart is the same. You need to challenge its power � not duration � to make it stronger.

We get a great source of data about heart health from the landmark Harvard Health Professionals Study of over 7,000 people. They found that the key to exercise is not length or endurance. It�s intensity. The more energy a person exerted, the lower their risk of heart disease.

The best way to achieve high intensity workouts is to break the activity into short bursts. You can use any activity that will give your heart a bit of a challenge. My favorites are swimming, biking, running and elliptical machines.

I switch my patients among them to keep it fun and lower the chance of �overuse injuries.� What you use will depend on your level of fitness. The most important strategy is to increase your challenge gradually over time.

Protect Yourself from Heart Disease � In Just Minutes a Day

Over the past ten years, I developed a more effective heart-strengthening program. I call it PACE� for Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Exertion. It consistently produces dramatic results in my patients.

PACE� focuses on short bursts of exercise. I call them periods of exertion and recovery. Break your exercise into short bouts then increase the intensity gradually as your conditioning improves. When you do this, it�s more enjoyable, more effective and safer than longer exercise at lower intensity. Start Here: The 10-Minute Program Chart

Warm-Up Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Exertion Recovery Exertion Recovery Exertion Recovery 90 sec 1 min 1 min 1 min 1 min 1 min 1 min

Set 4 Set 5 Exertion Recovery Exertion Recovery 1 min 1 min 1 min 1 min

Do the first interval at a low to moderate intensity. Then rest. But when you �rest,� I don�t mean stop. Your rest interval should be a slow, easy pace � as if you�re walking.

On the second interval, boost the intensity. If you�re on a stationary bike, for example, you can turn up the resistance so it�s harder to pedal.

As the length of the interval goes down, the intensity should go up. By the time you do the thirty-second interval, you should give it everything you have.

If you haven�t exercised in a while, go slow at first. As you improve, give yourself an extra challenge each time you workout.

To get the whole story � and a bulletproof heart � get PACE: Rediscover Your Native Fitness

Lee I, et al. Exercise intensity and longevity in men. The Harvard Alumni Health Study. JAMA. 1995 Apr 19;273(15):1179-84. Lee I, et al. Relative intensity of physical activity and risk of coronary heart disease. Circulation. 2003 Mar 4;107(8):1110-6.