Post heart attack walking for cardio exercise is what most of heart attack survivors, are encouraged to do five days a week.
Walking outdoors to exercise your heart is often easier to fit into a daily schedule, and can be more budget friendly than other options, while still offering some major heart recovery benefits.
- Walking can strengthen your heart –As you know, the heart is a muscle, and muscles that get little or no exercise tend to waste away.
- Walking encourages a natural bypass – Cardio exercise, such as brisk walking, promotes the building of a network of small new blood vessels that aid blood flow to the heart. These can actually help to save your life in the event of a heart attack.
- Walking can repair heart damage – Research recently conducted in the UK revealed that exercise actually activates stem cells that repair damage done by a heart attack!
If you have not previously walked for health benefits, you will need a good, comfortable pair of shoes designed for walking. Shop local, since you will need to try on a few before you find the right ones. If the price seems steep for the shoes you like, check online for the same style number.
If you participate in a cardiac rehab program twice a week, spend some time on a treadmill and get an idea of whether or not you can walk a full 30 minutes initially. If not, you might try for 15 minutes there, and another 15 minutes after dinner in the evening (there are additional health benefits to walking after the evening meal). The remaining three days a week, you still need to shoot for 30 minutes a day. In the heat of summer or, if your neighborhood isn't conducive to walking and there are no nearby parks, you can always "mall walk". Keep in mind that, while some walking is better than no walking, ultimately you want to be able to walk for 30 minutes or more in one stretch.