Strength Training can help strengthen your heart and can help reduce the body fat that surrounds your heart. Along with strengthening your heart, it can also improve blood flow and lowering your risk of heart disease. You are probably thinking that you have always been told that cardiovascular training like walking and running is good for your heart health. It is good for your heart; however cardio workouts deliver a steady heart rate while strength training increases your heart rate much faster and ramps up your heart rate in less that 5 seconds. That will allow your heart to handle more stress.

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Not all strength exercises are the same. Body weight and free weight exercises are the most beneficial over isolation machines because you are incorporating much more muscle groups of the body. I recommend working with an experienced bodybuilding coach like myself to help you learn the most beneficial exercises for your health and fitness goals. The reason I recommend a bodybuilding coach is most bodybuilders are experienced in proper form and technique to shape the body. They will only allow you to perform exercises to your physical ability.

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Top 5 Exercises for Heart Health:

1. Squats: Squats use our biggest muscle groups like our quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes and once you start to use free weights, they even incorporate our upper body to stabilize the weight. I always start my beginner clients with body weight squats before advancing them to exercises such as goblet squats using a dumbbell.
2. Deadlifts: Deadlifts use our upper and lower body together, so they use more muscle groups than any other exercise. The more muscles you use the higher your heart rate increases, which results in higher fat loss and improved cardiovascular health.
3. Pushups: As a personal trainer my clients hate when it's time for pushups because they know pushups are not easy. There is a reason for that! They WORK!! Pushups use our chest, shoulders, back, triceps and even core. The more you do them the stronger you get.
4. Lunges: Alternating lunges or walking lunges are the best ways of performing lunges and all the benefits you get with them. Many athletes live by lunges for the fact they have many benefits: increasing your heart rate, improved hip and ankle flexibility, improving your balance and coordination along with defining your legs unlike any other exercise. Every leg machine at your local Planet Fitness or Lifetime Fitness cannot achieve what lunges can!
5. Standing shoulder press: A great exercise for people of all fitness levels and helps with heart health, upper body strength, core strength and improving your posture. They will also improve your functional strength in day-to-day activities along with improving your body composition.

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Heart health is a serious matter and if we do not make the intention of seriously dedicating time to improve our heart health through strength and cardiovascular workouts we will lose the strength of our heart. One of the leading factors that lead to heart disease are not being physically active. We all need to build a healthier outlook with strength training and working out in general. It should not resemble something that is like a chore, but rather something that can give us more years to our life with our family and an overall better quality of life.

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