Chapter 6 - Exercise: Use It Or Lose ItWant More Info? Search HERE
do all the work. So it must work harder to get the blood all the way through the system. This extra work (increased blood pressure) over time causes the heart muscle to get bigger and bigger. This results in the infamous “enlargement of the heart.” The problem with this condition is that not only does the heart enlarge on the outside, it also enlarges on the inside. This leaves less empty volume inside the heart for the blood to fill and then be pumped out to the body. The blood becomes more and more diffi cult for the heart to pump through the system and the cycle just snowballs. Eventually, the heart becomes incapable of doing its job and the blood backs up in the venous part of the circulatory system. Eventually, the heart exhausts and simply stops – congestive heart failure. Distinct symptoms are evident as congestive heart failure develops. The person may often get short of breath and the extremities (arms and legs) swell with fluid. A condition called “pitting edema” is one of the hallmarks of this swelling. Pitting edema is identified by pushing on the lower half of the shin with the point of a finger. If it makes a “pit,” a deep indentation, and does not rebound quickly, that’s known as pitting edema. In the later stages of congestive heart failure, a person may even experience pneumonia-like symptoms like coughing and fluid in the lungs. The best possible prevention for congestive heart failure is regular exercise in which you’re contracting most of your body’s muscles several times, repeatedly, in order to strongly pump the blood volume through the veins, back toward the heart taking some of the pressure off the cardiac muscle. A good way to begin this kind of exercise is to aim for twenty minutes, three times weekly, doing whatever you enjoy that gets your heart rate to 120 if you’re under 45, to 110 if you’re between 45 and 60 or to 105 if you’re over 60. It might be dancing, walking, calisthenics or whatever exercise you enjoy doing. These are general guidelines, however. Don’t push yourself to getting very out of breath if you haven’t exercised for some time. Work your way up to this if you must. Start slowly and progress a little at a time. In fact, I always
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