Is exercise counterintuitive?

[PrinceKrillo]

This is something I've been wondering for quite a while now. Is the very concept of exercising to keep your HEART healthy counterintuitive? While exercise may have other benefits, I wanted to focus only on the claim that exercise is GOOD for your heart, as it seems to be the primary reason that most people try to stay fit.

Well, here's the problem I have with this ... while exercise may make your heart stronger as a muscle, the very act of exercising forces it to work harder (pump harder and faster), which is actually STRAINING your heart, is it not?

Can anyone honestly say that the athlete that spends several hours every single day training and pushing their heart to the limit ... is healthier than the lazy slob who lies on the couch all day? The lazy slob may not be exercising their heart, but they also aren't putting a huge strain on it day in and day out in order to "stay fit."

This right here is the irony behind exercise. In order to make your heart stronger, you have to strain it and make it work harder first?

In addition, consider this ... if exercise is "healthy" for your heart, then that means becoming emotionally stressed (enraged, frightened, anxious, etc.) is also HEALTHY for your heart. Because both cause the heart to beat harder and faster. And although there may be other differences between the two, they are IRRELEVANT. Because the EFFECTS on the heart are the same. A faster-beating heart is a faster-beating heart. It doesn't matter if it's due to exercise or due to psychological stress. The heart can't tell the difference. Physically, it's simply pumping harder/faster in either situation. So for the point I am making, they are the same.

Also, it is common knowledge that although exercise may give you a lower blood pressure in the long run, your blood pressure spikes and is very high DURING the act of exercising. This is probably one of the reasons why heart attacks often trigger when ... you guessed it ... during EXERCISE! Especially amongst the elderly. (another reason would the blatant fact that the heart beats harder/faster as it is FORCED to pump more blood/oxygen to the muscles of the body) So your telling me that an activity that blatantly raises your BP (perhaps even to dangerous levels in strenuous activity) should be done everday for HEALTH? Seems pretty ridiculous to me ...

Think about professonal athletes, especially professional wrestlers or UFC fighters. These guys are fighting in the arenas every single day. Their hearts are being strained not only by the physical stress of the fights, but also by the anxiety/mental stress caused by the same thing! In addition, when they're NOT fighting in the ring, they're working out in the gyms and pumping iron on a daily basis (same deal with bodybuilders) ... God knows what kind of strain THAT puts on their hearts. Your telling me those guys are HEALTHY because of this?

On that same note, what about DREAMS? When you dream (primarily during REM sleep from my understanding), your body reacts to what happens as if it were happening in real life. That is why when you dream you are in a fight with someone or you are running for your life ... when you wake up, you're probably gonna be soaked in sweat with a pounding heart, just as if those things were happening for real.

So does that mean if I DREAM I am physically active or exercising ... then my heart is actually getting a workout? Why not? It's the same thing. The only difference is that your skeletal muscles (arms, legs, etc.) may not ACTUALLY be getting a workout, but that once again is IRRELEVANT ... because whether or not other parts of your body are actually getting a workout makes no difference to the effects on your heart. If you DREAM you are exercising, your heart will pump harder/faster as if you were doing it in real life.

Now, you may not be able to control what you do in a dream (try as you might), but you sure as hell can control what you do in real life. To this day, I still have not found one argument that can accurately and completely refute everything I've just said.

Sometimes I wonder if the idea that exercise is "beneficial" for your heart is simply a farse of a concept concocted by western society in order to justify using exercise as a means of losing weight (as opposed to eating less calories, which is what you SHOULD be doing). And that exercising STRAINS the heart more than anything else.

Here's hoping that someone can argue EFFECTIVELY against what I've said and prove me wrong.

[Banh Mi]

People who exercise frequently are less likely to be fat. Lower cholestoral and such reduces risk of having your arteries blocked, less chance of a heart attack.
The thing with stress is that is draws on your sympathetic nervous system. It sends your body into emergency mode for a short peroid of time, sacrificing normal body function to boost your immediate reactions. So it pretty much is a last ditch effort, not healthy for you, but meant to keep you alive when you need to hustle. The problem with chronic stress is that it elicits this response far too often. Your body can't handle going crazy so often, lowering it's immune system etc each time. That makes your heart beat fast, but doesn't really help it.

Cardiovascular exercise on the other hand increases your heart rate slowly and steadily over a maintained period of time. This is the type of work the heart is built for, when you make the heart work at a continuous pace like this, it learns to work more efficiently, and becomes stronger. It can work less to perform the same function. So for a 70kg male, because his heart is so strong, it works less during the time he's not training. A 140 kg male would be stressing out his heart the entire time, because his heart has to beat harder and faster around the clock to get the blood circulating. And when that 140 kg person goes under stress, his heart beats even harder than it's supposed to and problems arise.

The difference between exercise and distress is like cooking meat. When you do it steadily over a period of time, it cooks right. If you turn on full fire for 5 seconds every 10 minutes, you're gonna just burn the meat.

[xJadedx]

There are a lot of confounds in the original post, but I'm kind of too lazy to point out everything.

[KeongJai]

Well, here's the problem I have with this ... while exercise may make your heart stronger as a muscle, the very act of exercising forces it to work harder (pump harder and faster), which is actually STRAINING your heart, is it not?

I think it comes down to knowing your limits. Pain is your body telling you something. Continuing what you're doing frequently for prolonged periods probably isn't the smartest thing to do long term.

Banh Mi said all there needs to be said pretty much.

Putting your body under stress isn't good but letting your body waste isn't good either.
Like all things in life it's all about balance.

Regarding dreams - if you have them, it means you aren't getting good sleep. Could be stress related, or it could be your body not being healthy because of diet or lifestyle.

Also, going from your post, it seems that you think heart rate beating fast = exercise. It's not. Heart rate beating fast is a measure of how intense your exercise is not the other way around.
You run (exercise) -> your heart beats faster.
Heart beating faster due to fear, shock, stress, the attraction to a member of an opposite sex - I wouldn't call it exercise. I'd just call it abnormal stress and movement.

I'm not sure if you can even train your heart. So like it said before, you just need to know your limit and obviously it changes are you age too.
Point is, just because your heart is weaker than what it used to be, doesn't mean you shouldn't do any exercise, because it's not just your heart that you need to look after. Having an unhealthy body will put more stress on your heart anyway and you have to deal with that every second of every day. That's why fat people are prone to heart problems.

[Exodus]

what doesn't kill you will make you stronger. For normal people i.e. not professionals sportmen there is no need to push yourself to the limit and you do not know your true limit in the first place. You will be amazed when your realized how fast the body adapts.

Running at comfort zone for 2 hours a week is more than enough to receive most of the health benefits like reducing stress, colesterol and strenghten your heart. However it's a challenge against yourself to try to push yourself to the limit that makes it so interesting to me.

Ofcourse if you want to start running or doing other exercises you have to start slowly and gradually increase time interval, intensity or do some short intervals to mix it up.

[IPlayWow]

This is something I've been wondering for quite a while now. Is the very concept of exercising to keep your HEART healthy counterintuitive? While exercise may have other benefits, I wanted to focus only on the claim that exercise is GOOD for your heart, as it seems to be the primary reason that most people try to stay fit.

Well, here's the problem I have with this ... while exercise may make your heart stronger as a muscle, the very act of exercising forces it to work harder (pump harder and faster), which is actually STRAINING your heart, is it not?

Can anyone honestly say that the athlete that spends several hours every single day training and pushing their heart to the limit ... is healthier than the lazy slob who lies on the couch all day? The lazy slob may not be exercising their heart, but they also aren't putting a huge strain on it day in and day out in order to "stay fit."

This right here is the irony behind exercise. In order to make your heart stronger, you have to strain it and make it work harder first?

In addition, consider this ... if exercise is "healthy" for your heart, then that means becoming emotionally stressed (enraged, frightened, anxious, etc.) is also HEALTHY for your heart. Because both cause the heart to beat harder and faster. And although there may be other differences between the two, they are IRRELEVANT. Because the EFFECTS on the heart are the same. A faster-beating heart is a faster-beating heart. It doesn't matter if it's due to exercise or due to psychological stress. The heart can't tell the difference. Physically, it's simply pumping harder/faster in either situation. So for the point I am making, they are the same.

Also, it is common knowledge that although exercise may give you a lower blood pressure in the long run, your blood pressure spikes and is very high DURING the act of exercising. This is probably one of the reasons why heart attacks often trigger when ... you guessed it ... during EXERCISE! Especially amongst the elderly. (another reason would the blatant fact that the heart beats harder/faster as it is FORCED to pump more blood/oxygen to the muscles of the body) So your telling me that an activity that blatantly raises your BP (perhaps even to dangerous levels in strenuous activity) should be done everday for HEALTH? Seems pretty ridiculous to me ...

Think about professonal athletes, especially professional wrestlers or UFC fighters. These guys are fighting in the arenas every single day. Their hearts are being strained not only by the physical stress of the fights, but also by the anxiety/mental stress caused by the same thing! In addition, when they're NOT fighting in the ring, they're working out in the gyms and pumping iron on a daily basis (same deal with bodybuilders) ... God knows what kind of strain THAT puts on their hearts. Your telling me those guys are HEALTHY because of this?

On that same note, what about DREAMS? When you dream (primarily during REM sleep from my understanding), your body reacts to what happens as if it were happening in real life. That is why when you dream you are in a fight with someone or you are running for your life ... when you wake up, you're probably gonna be soaked in sweat with a pounding heart, just as if those things were happening for real.

So does that mean if I DREAM I am physically active or exercising ... then my heart is actually getting a workout? Why not? It's the same thing. The only difference is that your skeletal muscles (arms, legs, etc.) may not ACTUALLY be getting a workout, but that once again is IRRELEVANT ... because whether or not other parts of your body are actually getting a workout makes no difference to the effects on your heart. If you DREAM you are exercising, your heart will pump harder/faster as if you were doing it in real life.

Now, you may not be able to control what you do in a dream (try as you might), but you sure as hell can control what you do in real life. To this day, I still have not found one argument that can accurately and completely refute everything I've just said.

Sometimes I wonder if the idea that exercise is "beneficial" for your heart is simply a farse of a concept concocted by western society in order to justify using exercise as a means of losing weight (as opposed to eating less calories, which is what you SHOULD be doing). And that exercising STRAINS the heart more than anything else.

Here's hoping that someone can argue EFFECTIVELY against what I've said and prove me wrong.

Well I got this dream where running from the dark and trying to get to the light. Than my alarm clock woke me up. No swaet nothing at all. So I guess it depend from people to people. Everyone is different.

I don't get what you're trying to say about the exercise thing but I just wanna say we should balance out everything in our life from what we eat to how much we sleep. Too much of anything isn't a good thing unless and I say unless it's money lol.

[ShimmerDreamz]

This is something I've been wondering for quite a while now. Is the very concept of exercising to keep your HEART healthy counterintuitive? While exercise may have other benefits, I wanted to focus only on the claim that exercise is GOOD for your heart, as it seems to be the primary reason that most people try to stay fit.

Well, here's the problem I have with this ... while exercise may make your heart stronger as a muscle, the very act of exercising forces it to work harder (pump harder and faster), which is actually STRAINING your heart, is it not?

Can anyone honestly say that the athlete that spends several hours every single day training and pushing their heart to the limit ... is healthier than the lazy slob who lies on the couch all day? The lazy slob may not be exercising their heart, but they also aren't putting a huge strain on it day in and day out in order to "stay fit."

This right here is the irony behind exercise. In order to make your heart stronger, you have to strain it and make it work harder first?

In addition, consider this ... if exercise is "healthy" for your heart, then that means becoming emotionally stressed (enraged, frightened, anxious, etc.) is also HEALTHY for your heart. Because both cause the heart to beat harder and faster. And although there may be other differences between the two, they are IRRELEVANT. Because the EFFECTS on the heart are the same. A faster-beating heart is a faster-beating heart. It doesn't matter if it's due to exercise or due to psychological stress. The heart can't tell the difference. Physically, it's simply pumping harder/faster in either situation. So for the point I am making, they are the same.

Stress is bad for you longterm since it also releases cortisol, a hormone with some rather unpleasant effects on your health. Here's the wiki entry for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol.

Cardio exercise is great for the heart because you're training it and making it more effective and stronger. Yes, you're straining it for the 30 mins that you work out, but you're also making the muscles stronger so when you're not exercising, it's strong enough to pump a fewer no. of times to achieve the same circulatory effect a less healthy person's heart does. That's why some athletes' hearts can beat as little as 60 times/sec whilst normal adults' heart rates are higher.

If you think exercise is akin to Western progaganda, then so be it. Let's disregard all the medical global research conducted by scientists across different nationalities and subscribe to your narrow beliefs.

[CC]

The answer to this, like most other questions in life, is MODERATION.

[JoeLee]

Exercise is great for your heart. As Banh Mi mentioned earlier, running regularly will lower your resting heart rate, so your heart actually works less in the long run. There was a study done not too long ago which suggested that regular marathon runners had done some damage to their hearts, but 99 percent of the population will never reach that extreme.

So in short, no exercise is not counter intuitive. There is literally mountains of research that show exercise provides both mental and physical benefits.

[Trien Chieu]

Exercise is good but don't over do. Running 30-60 minutes everyday is one of the best thing you can do for yourself.

[PJ]

The answer to this, like most other questions in life, is MODERATION.

Like what Ken and Suet Seung do on SPCNET forums?

ARTS

[Dimeron]

Yes, your muscles, including your heart, take micro damage when you exerciser, that's how they get stronger.

So everything in moderation. If you work like an 18th century Coolie it is obviously not healthy either.