Post-Heart Attack Fitness and Recovery Tips

Recovery from a heart attack is faster when you slowly incorporate exercise to your daily routine. Exercise helps keep the heart healthy and aids in cardiac rehabilitation. Most heart attack survivors will go through cardiac rehabilitation and this program includes a fitness and nutrition plan. Healing starts with a fit and healthy lifestyle. In today’s post, we are listing down post-heart attack exercises and recovery tips to boost heart health!

Before Working Out

Develop Your Routine

Create a sound (and safe!) fitness routine. Start by doing at least 10 minutes of warm-up exercises such as stationary biking or light walking. After warming up the muscles, increase the intensity of your workout for at least 20 minutes. Finally, cool down for at least 5 minutes by doing bits of light walking again. As your body builds strength, you can adjust your routine to 10 minutes of warming up, 30 minutes of exercising and 5 minutes of cooling down.

Know Your Target Pulse

It’s imperative to apply the right level of intensity to maximize the heart-friendly benefits of exercising. Our advice is to ask your doctor what your target heart rate is and track your pulse during your workout. This way, you know that you are hitting your target and that your heart is getting better.

Check Your Pulse

Exercising at the right intensity level is important for maximizing its cardiovascular benefits. Check with your doctor to see what your target heart rate should be when you work out.

Best Post-Heart Attack Exercises

Walking

Walking is the safest exercise for heart attack survivors. Our advice is to go slow. You want to start walking slowly at least 10 minutes daily. Walk slowly until the body starts building strength. Once the body is gaining strength, then you can ask your doctor what other exercises you can do according to your fitness level.

Strength Training

Strength training is an excellent post-heart attack exercise. You can use elastic bands, machine weights, and free weights to increase muscle strength, improve stamina and develop a stronger, healthier heart. You can use free weights and elastic bands to improve mobility too.

Cycling

Whether you use a real bike or a stationary bike is up to you. Just like walking, biking is a great way to increase the heart rate, strengthen the muscles and tone the legs. Because biking has zero impact, it’s kinder on the knees as opposed to jogging or walking.

Swimming

Swimming is another low-impact exercise that keeps the muscles and heart healthy! Start slowly by warming up with stretch exercises. After warming up for ten minutes, take a 20 to 30 minute swim then cool down. Of course, you need to get your doctor’s permission first before you start doing laps at the pool!

Jogging

Light jogging tones the legs, strengthens the lungs and heart as well as keep the heart rate up. This exercise will torch a lot of calories while improving endurance and mobility! Adjust the intensity of your workout according to your doctor’s advice. If say, you’re still adjusting to working out, limit your jogging time to just 10 minutes. Gradually, you can move on to 20 to 30 minutes of jogging until you’ve fully recovered.