image of heart in pulse

How exercise Can Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease

Regular exercise has a favorable effect on many of the established risk factors for cardiovascular disease. For example, exercise promotes weight reduction and can help reduce blood pressure. Exercise has shown to lower "bad" cholesterol levels in the blood (the low-density lipoprotein [LDL] level), it has also shown to lower a person's total cholesterol. It will also help to raise are "good" cholesterol (the high-density lipoprotein level [HDL]).

Aerobic activity uses your heart and lungs for an extended period of time, studies are showing that this helps your heart to use oxygen better and improves our bodies blood flow.

coronary heart disease causes a waxy substance called plaque (plak) to build up inside your coronary arteries. These arteries supply your heart muscle with oxygen-rich blood the benefits of regular exercise are known to lower the chances of plaque buildup.

  • How Does Exercise Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease Summary

  • Reduction in blood pressure
  • Reduction in bad (LDL and total) cholesterol
  • Increase in good (HDL) cholesterol
  • Increase in insulin sensitivity

When done regularly, moderate and vigorous intensity physical activity will help to strengthen your heart muscle. By strengthening our heart we improve our heart's ability to pump blood to the lungs and throughout our body. This allows more blood to flow to the muscles, causing oxygen levels in our bodies blood to rise.

Your Capillaries (tiny blood vessels) also widen well exercising. This gives them the ability to deliver more oxygen to your body and carry away waste products.

researchers have found that for heart attack patients who participated in a formal exercise program, the death rate is reduced by 20% to 25%. This is strong evidence in support of physical activity for patients with heart disease

By strengthening your heart with exercise you can also help reduce the risk of a second heart attack in people who already have had heart attacks.

  • Additional Benefits of Regular Exercise

  • Increase in exercise tolerance
  • Reduction in body weight
  • Reduction in blood pressure
  • Reduction in bad (LDL and total) cholesterol
  • Increase in good (HDL) cholesterol
  • Increase in insulin sensitivity
  • Increase in insulin sensitivity
  • Prevents bone loss
  • Boosts energy level
  • Helps manage stress
  • Helps with higher level of sleep quality
  • Reduces coronary heart disease in women by 30-40 percent
  • Reduces risk of stroke by 20 percent in moderately active people
  • Delays and chronic illness and disease associated with aging

Looking to gain more strength or lose some weight? We offer free fitness tools to help you reach your fitness goals. Register for free while we are in beta and get free lifetime access to our fitness tools that include an easy to use Calorie Counter, High-Intensity Interval Timer, Multiple Fitness Calculators and our Exercise Logger.