Best Workouts to Prioritize Heart Health

By Jason Schneider

When you want to sculpt beautiful, strong muscles, you head to the gym and pump some iron. When the heart is the hardest working muscle in your body, responsible for pumping about 2 liters of blood through your body with every beat, think about whether you are exercising this specific muscle that’s crucial for optimal performance.

According to Johns Hopkins exercise physiologist Kerry J. Stewart, Ed.D., “Aerobic exercise and resistance training are the most important for heart health.” Even though flexibility doesn’t contribute directly to heart health, it’s vital to provide a good foundation for performing aerobic and strength exercises more effectively.

Aerobic exercise is moderate to hard-intensity exercise that uses large muscle groups, increases heart rate, and helps increase your body’s oxygen use. This type of exercise is ideal for helping to strengthen your cardiac muscle and overall heart health. Some great options include walking, running, cycling and swimming.

However, one of the most important elements of any successful workout plan is finding activities you enjoy. If going to the gym and walking/running on the treadmill is akin to watching paint dry, consider changing it up. Get into a Crunch group fitness class like So You Think You Can’t Dance, Cardio Tai Box, The Ride: Let the Beat Drop, or Fat Burning Pilates your way to a stronger heart. Not only do group fitness classes offer a wide variety of options to physically help you work up a sweat and get the heart pumping, but the music, community, and energy of a group workout produce endorphins (aka the body’s “natural high”).

As a group fitness instructor, we often see members who love to take cardio-based classes but rarely step into a strength-focused format or out onto the strength floor. Yet, resistance training is crucial for helping to maintain muscle mass and bone density (especially as we age), along with a myriad of other health benefits including improved heart health, reduced risk of heart disease and high blood pressure, increased metabolism, and overall injury prevention. In the Crunch group fitness studio, weight-bearing formats like Barre Bootcamp, TransformIt Strong, Barbell Bound, Heated Flow Yoga, and every single HIITZone or turf class combines resistance with cardio benefits.

Intensity matters and should be a consideration for every workout. Cardio-based workouts can include aerobic (with oxygen) work and/or anaerobic (without oxygen) work.  Both have significant benefits to heart health. Understanding the differences and when is the best time to incorporate different intensities will help you to get the best results and avoid injuries.

The vast majority of work we do in the gym and fitness classes is aerobic work (also known as the aerobic zone), which makes up the broadest spectrum of intensities when exercising. For instance, a member doing a 1-minute hard effort in a RIDE class, a marathon runner, and a Yoga Flow participant are all working within the aerobic zone. These workouts may be very different intensities, but the body is still utilizing oxygen for energy.

Anaerobic work is typically very short and explosive. Short sprints (15-30 seconds), box jumps, and most hypertrophy strength training (low rep, max weight) also help to strengthen the heart and increase metabolism. When considering which forms of exercise are best for you – as many factors need to be considered – it’s best to work with a personal trainer, coach, or physician to create a plan that is smart, safe, and most effective for you.  Just downloading a workout you find online or on social media doesn’t take your personal needs into account and may not be the safest approach.

Finally, flexibility training is one of the most misunderstood and under-utilized exercise formats that definitely needs a bit more respect and dedication.  How often do you hit the gym and jump right into your workout – with muscles tight and likely to resist the tension that is about to ensue? Most gym-goers admit that they really need to stretch more. Well, we agree!  Incorporating a regular flexibility program, while not directly connected to heart health, helps to adequately prep the body for the work that is about to come, or perhaps as a cool down to help relieve tightness and strain in the muscles you just taxed. When thinking of how this might be important to overall heart health, consider this: if injured, you may have to pause working out and that can affect your overall health. So, get yourself into a Heated Hot Mobility class, Joint Ventures, Hatha Flow yoga, or create your own routine to stay flexible and healthy!

Whatever your goal might be – aesthetic, performance-based, or overall health – you cannot ignore one of the (if not the single most) important muscles in your body. No time to waste. Get up, get active, and mix it up. Cardio, resistance, and flexibility training are the true secrets to prioritizing your overall heart health.

Jason Schneider is a West Coast GF Manager for Crunch Fitness.