Benefits of Healthy Heart Gymnastics and Movements
As
the organ that pumps blood throughout the body, the heart is very
important to the human body. Therefore, it needs to be taken care of
properly.
The good news is that maintaining a healthy heart is
not difficult. Doing healthy heart exercises at home can improve your
heart health and performance. As the name implies, healthy heart
exercise itself refers to exercise movements that can improve heart
health.
Besides being fun to do, healthy heart exercises have many benefits.
Benefits of healthy heart exercises
If done regularly, healthy heart exercises have benefits such as:
- Strengthening the heart muscle
- Control blood pressure
- Controlling cholesterol and triglycerides
- Maintaining ideal body weight
- Controlling blood sugar levels
- Reduces body inflammation
- Lowers stress hormones that put extra strain on the heart
These benefits are huge in preventing common cardiovascular diseases such as stroke and heart attack.
5 Heart-healthy exercise moves
Exercise
that aims to maintain heart health is often also known as cardio. The
movements vary, ranging from light, medium, to heavy. But if it's your
first time, choose moves that are easy and light.
Here are some heart-healthy exercises you can practice at home:
1. Running in place
Running in place or jogging in place is a heart-healthy exercise that is very easy for anyone to do.
If
you want to make the movement more fun, try running in place by lifting
your knees towards your chest or touching your heels to your buttocks.
Besides being fun, this variation can also increase the intensity of the
movement.
Running in place is often used as a 60-second warm-up move. But if you want to do it for longer, that's fine too.
2. Stand on one leg
This move is easy to do. In addition to keeping your heart healthy, standing on one leg can strengthen your abdominal muscles.
The
way to do it is as follows. Stand with your feet parallel. Then lift
one of your legs until the knee is bent. Then hold the position for 15
seconds. After that, lower the leg. Do the same with the other leg.
Do this movement repeatedly, as much as you can.
3. Climb up and down the stairs
Who
would have thought that maintaining heart health can be done by going
up and down stairs. Moving up and down the stairs is beneficial for
strengthening the heart muscles and also the leg muscles.
To
increase the intensity of this exercise you can add variations such as
climbing two stairs at once or speeding up the steps up the stairs. When
doing so, make sure your position is safe so you don't fall off the
stairs.
4. Squat jump
If you want a more intense heart-healthy workout, you can try squat jump.
This
movement is a combination of squats and jumps. To do it you can start
with a squat position. When squatting make sure you are in a position
like you want to sit on a bench.
After that, jump and land in the same position. Do this movement as many times as you can.
In addition to keeping your heart healthy, this movement will help build thigh and buttock muscles.
5. Mountain climber
Although it looks easy, the mountain climber is a pretty difficult and labor-intensive move. Here's how to do it.
Start
in a push-up position with your right leg extended backwards and bring
your left knee towards your chest. Make sure your toes are on the floor.
Then, extend your left leg back to a normal position and lift your
right knee towards your chest. Do this leg lift alternately for some
time.
If you are starting for the first time, do it slowly and
don't be hasty. When you get used to it, then increase the speed of the
leg movements to increase the intensity.
Make sure your body position is correct and comfortable when doing it to avoid injury.
In
addition to the healthy heart exercise movements above, there are still
several other activities that you can do to maintain heart health. Some
of them are morning running, brisk walking, swimming, cycling, dancing,
and joining aerobics classes.
In order to maximize heart health, also combine exercise habits with eating healthy foods and also sleeping regularly.
Thank you for reading this article. Have a nice day.
