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4 min read<\/p>\n4 min read<\/p>\n
For optimal heart health benefits<\/a>, the United States Department of Health and Human Services currently advises that adults get between 150 and 300 minutes of moderate intensity exercise (i.e. cycling, swimming, brisk walking) or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise (i.e. running) per week. According to a new study, those recommendations may not be so universal. It all depends on your baseline fitness and the health goals you want to meet. For instance, if you\u2019re looking to slash your cardiovascular-related risks by up to 30% (which is pretty significant), the findings say you\u2019ll want to be up and moving a lot more often than the standard guidelines recommend.<\/p>\n Meet the xperts: Marwa Ahmed, NASM-CPT,<\/a> a personal trainer, running coach, and CEO and founder of The BodyMind Coach; and Sirisha Vadali, M.D.<\/a>, a board-certified cardiologist and advanced lipidologist at HonorHealth.<\/p>\n Below, a personal trainer and cardiologist weigh in on the findings and share how to work more movement into your daily life for better heart health.<\/p>\n What did the study find?<\/p>\n For the study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine<\/a>, researchers analyzed medical data and physical activity from more than 17,000 adults around 57 years old. Over a period of 7.8 years, they tracked the group\u2019s health events and noted 1,233 cardiovascular events, including 874 cases of atrial fibrillation, 156 heart attacks, 111 cases of heart failure, and 92 strokes. Upon further analysis, researchers determined a strong association between weekly physical activity and better cardiovascular health. Specifically, the main contributor was better VO2 max<\/a>, which is something that declines with age, notes Marwa Ahmed, NASM-CPT,<\/a> a personal trainer, running coach, and CEO and founder of The BodyMind Coach\u2014it\u2019s the maximum amount of oxygen a person\u2019s body can utilize during intense exercise. In other words, those with higher VO2 max numbers fared better physically.<\/p>\n Put simply, more exercise was linked to better heart health: The current guideline of 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity weekly was associated with a modest 8 to 9% reduction in cardiovascular risk, and the risk reduction grew much more significant, to 30% or higher, when weekly exercise increased to 560 to 610 minutes, which is three to four times the current recommendation.<\/p>\n Researchers also found that people with lower baseline fitness needed slightly more (around 30 to 50 minutes more) activity to reach the same cardiovascular benefits. \u201cThis suggests that the current recommendation of one-size-fits-all doesn\u2019t work equally for everybody,\u201d notes Ahmed.<\/p>\n Why exercise matters for heart health<\/p>\n There is plenty of research that shows the benefits of exercise for heart health<\/a>. \u201cThe more you train your cardiovascular system, the more your body becomes better at adapting to the exercise stress applied to it,\u201d explains Ahmed. That\u2019s how you increase your VO2 max: \u201cYour mitochondria, which are the energy factory in your cells, multiply and become more efficient at using oxygen,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n