I’m a lit­tle wor­ried about my risk of car­dio­vas­cu­lar prob­lems.  My dad began to have heart prob­lems in his 50’s (younger than I am now) and even­tu­ally died of car­dio­vas­cu­lar com­pli­ca­tions at age 72.

My LDL cho­les­terol is start­ing to creep up and my HDL is a lit­tle too low.  And lately, when I check my blood pres­sure, it’s 130/80.  I have to start tak­ing my car­diac health seriously.

For­tu­nately, I’ve man­aged to lose about seven pounds over the last year.  I exer­cise reg­u­larly.  But….. I’m pretty lazy.

So if there’s an eas­ier way to do some­thing, I’m totally in favor of it.

And recently, in the light of new research, I’ve changed my approach to exer­cise completely.

Good­bye to “cardio”

For years, the for­mula for heart-healthy exer­cise has been:

1. Raise your heart rate to the tar­get zone (about 80% of your max­i­mum safe range, which is based on your age) and
2. Keep it there for a min­i­mum of 20 min­utes.  Longer is even better.

There’s noth­ing wrong with this type of pro­gram.  You’re a heck of a lot bet­ter off if you fol­low it than if you’re a total couch potato.

But it turns out that it’s more impor­tant to get your heart pump­ing to its max­i­mum, even if it’s for briefer peri­ods.  The blood rush­ing through your arter­ies actu­ally scours out the bad plaque that’s build­ing up on the inside of your artery walls.  The faster you can get your blood flow­ing, the more effec­tive the flush­ing effect will be.

You’ll build more mus­cle and burn more fat with shorter bursts of intense exer­cise, too.

Wel­come to HIIT Train­ing: High Inten­sity Inter­val Train­ing

Based on this research, here’s the new, sim­ple exer­cise plan I’ve sug­gested to a lot of my patients:

1. Run (or if you can’t run, walk) as fast as you can for 45 seconds.
2. Then slow down for the next 45 sec­onds to catch your breath.  It’s okay if you slow to a jog or even a walk­ing pace. But make sure to keep moving.
3. Next, ramp up to your top speed for the next 45 seconds
4. Con­tinue to alter­nate 45-seconds of intense activ­ity with 45-second cooling-off periods.

Start your pro­gram with 6 high-intensity inter­vals, but if that seems impos­si­ble, make sure you pump it up to the max for at least 5 cycles (with 45-second cool­ing off peri­ods in-between, of course.)  Grad­u­ally, you can add addi­tional inter­vals – up to 8 or 10.

If run­ning is impos­si­ble for you, you can adapt the same inter­val pat­tern to cycling, the sta­tion­ary bike, ellip­ti­cal trainer, or any other phys­i­cal activ­ity.  For instance, even if your fit­ness activ­ity is sim­ply tak­ing a walk, add a few flights of stairs in the mid­dle of your walk.  Jump­ing rope is another higher-intensity activ­ity you can use for inter­val training.

If you stick with this pro­gram 3–4 times per week, you’ll soon enjoy the results:

• You’ll be able to run faster and recover more quickly.
• You’ll build mus­cle.  And,
• You’ll slash your risk of car­dio­vas­cu­lar problems.

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