You Gotta Have Heart

Lub dub, lub dub, lub dub. That's what the heart beat sounds like through a stethoscope. The little, approximately 10 ounce" , engine that could" is pumping blood at the prodigious rate of around 1,900 gallons per day, 700,000 gallons per year, and a whopping 48 million gallons by the time we reach age 70. On a relative basis, that's probably better than the Alaska pipeline. Not bad for an organ about the size of a human fist.

The heart is a muscle pump and, like most of our other muscles, it responds well to moderate, frequent aerobic [ means living in air ] exercise in which we get the rate up for a period of time. One of the standard assessment tests for fitness is the resting heart rate which should be, for the average person, between 70 and 100 beats per minute, depending on your age and physical fitness.

Anaerobic exercise, or strengthening of the skeletal muscles, is also important but the system, as a whole, works more efficiently when we supply oxygen-rich blood to the cells. That's the job for the "little engine that could." The goal is to deliver the most volume of oxygen-rich blood with the least amount of effort possible. We need to maximize the blood volume pumped with each stroke! This can greatly reduce the threat of heart disease, enhance the ageing process, and produce HDL cholesterol [ the good kind].

We don't really need to train like Lance Armstrong [ not unless you're so inclined ] to be aerobically fit. Many doctors recommend a nice brisk walk several times each week, working in the garden, dancing, bike riding, swimming and just plain moving. Moving is the operative word. Chuck that sedentary lifestyle. We are not engineered to be couch potatoes. If you have any doubts about the intensity of training, ask your doctor, a nurse practitioner or a certified personal trainer. Like the cartoon characters said, you've got to move it, move it move it!