Give Your Heart A Workout

If you've found the exercise-an-hour-per-day ideal a little daunting (or downright undoable), scientists have some very good news: While any activity is good for your heart, new research shows that you can maximize its heart-attack-proofing benefits—and spend less time at the gym—by making three simple changes to your workout schedule. Here's how to get started.  
Your Weekly Sweat Schedule
Day 1: Cardio intervals
Day 2: Strength training, Stretching
Day 3: Cardio intervals
Day 4: Stretching
Day 5: Strength training
Day 6: Cardio intervals, Stretching
Day 7: Rest
1. Recharge Your Cardio
Recent studies have found that interval training (alternating between high-and moderate-intensity bursts of activity) can double and possibly even triple the heart-protecting benefits you'd get from moderate cardio sessions—even when you exercise for less time. "Short cardio bursts make your heart work harder and pump more blood with each beat, which strengthens your entire cardiovascular system," says David Swain, PhD, a professor of exercise science at Old Dominion University.
[sidebar] High-intensity cardio also prompts your muscles to develop more mitochondria, tiny energy-making units within cells that use sugar and fat for fuel. The more mitochondria you have, the better your muscles become at utilizing carbohydrates, improving the body's insulin sensitivity. The result: Less sugar floats around in your blood, and this lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes, a major precursor to heart disease. High-intensity exercise may also give you a greater reduction in blood pressure. When you pick up the pace, artery walls produce nitric oxide, which boosts their ability to dilate so blood flows more easily.
Intimidated? Consider this: Norwegian researchers looked at two groups of patients who were suffering from chronic heart failure. Three times a week, one group walked at a moderate pace, while the other group did high-intensity bursts of walking. The interval-training group increased their VO2 max, a key indicator of cardiovascular function, by a whopping 46%—triple the increase seen in the slower walkers. The best part: "You gauge the intensity based on your own fitness level," says Sharonne N. Hayes, MD, a cardiologist and founder of the Women's Heart Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. That might be a brisk walk for you, while it could be a fast jog for someone else.
Your Heart-Smart Rx: Cardio
Do 25 to 30 minutes of interval training 3 times per week. Alternate between 1 to 2 minutes at 85% of your maximum heart rate and 2 to 3 minutes at 65% of MHR; work up to 30-to 60-second intervals at 95% of MHR.
Find Your Best Beat
Step 1. Find your maximum heart rate. First, multiply your age by 88%. Subtract that number from 206 to get your MHR. If you're 50, your MHR is 162 beats per minute (206 – 44 [88% of 50] = 162).
Step 2. Multiply your MHR by 65% to get your moderate target heart rate and by 85% to get your high-intensity target heart rate.
Step 3. A heart rate monitor can gauge your beats, but you can also use the "talk test": When working at high intensity, you won't be able to speak a full sentence without taking a deep breath.

[header=Build Your Strength]
2. Build Your Strength
Women too often shy away from strength training—and they shouldn't. If you don't make an effort to maintain muscle mass, it decreases gradually with age—about 5% per decade after age 35—and stemming that loss is more vital to your ticker with each passing year. Why? "Muscle helps remove glucose and triglycerides from the bloodstream, which reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes, as well as hardening of the arteries," says Timothy Church, MD, PhD, a preventive medicine expert at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA.
Skimping on strength training can also make it harder to stay at a healthy weight, and extra pounds put you at higher risk of heart disease. That's because adding muscle mass increases your metabolic rate (muscle burns more calories than fat), which may make it easier to keep weight off, says Malissa Wood, MD, co-director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center's Corrigan Women's Heart Health Program.
Building lean muscle mass may also help lower your blood pressure. "Strength training lowers blood pressure for ten to twelve hours after each session, which gives your heart a break," says William Haskell, PhD, professor emeritus of medicine at Stanford University. "How strength training does this is not completely understood, but it probably has subtle effects on everything from hormones to nervous system regulation."
Your Heart-Smart Rx: Strength Training
Do at least 15 to 20 minutes of total-body strength training 2 or 3 times a week, suggests Conrad Earnest, PhD, director of exercise biology at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Here are 3 moves to get you started. Work up to 3 circuits with 1-minute rests in between.

Downward-Facing Dog
STRETCHES: Shoulders, back, hamstrings, calves
Start on all fours with wrists 6 to 12 inches in front of shoulders. Separate knees so they're hip-width apart and curl toes under. Pushing evenly into palms, lift knees off floor. Lift tailbone toward ceiling and push top of thighs back so body looks like an inverted V. Slowly begin to straighten knees. Move chest toward thighs until ears are even with upper arms. Hold, working up to 1 minute.