Muscular Heart Failure Patients May Have a Better Chance at Survival

From this Science Daily Muscular Heart Failure Patients May Have a Better Chance at Survival, Study Suggests:

“University of Alberta research has discovered heart failure patients with more muscle have the potential to increase their length of life.”

I would also suggest that even those who did not experience heart failure and have more muscle will have greater potential to increase their length of life. As this blog is fond of saying people are not generally put in nursing homes forbeing out of breath; it is more likely they are too weak to handle day-to-day activities or their weakness make them prone to failing and injury.

It is never too late to increase strength and muscle. Our oldest client at Personal Training Austin TX is 92 years old. Our oldest client at New Orleans Fitness Trainers was 91 years. old. Increasing strength will reverse more of the bio-markers of aging than any other form of exercise.

Strength Training for Those Who Have Heart Conditions

From this study, Strength Training Early After Myocardial Infarction, comes this quote:

“In selected patients, low-to-moderate intensity strength training performed early after infarction is effective and may have lower rates of cardiovascular problems than aerobic exercise.”

The selection of those patients as candidates for strength training is will beyond the pay grade of personal trainers and falls under the purview of a doctor. Once a doctor clears the patient for exercise special care is given to bring the client up to speed slowly.

At Kelly Personal Training in Austin and at Ultimate Fitness in New Orleans our personal training sessions follow a simple dictate: Perform a little more exercise than one is used to handling and then rest and recover adequately. This applies to recovering patients and advanced athletes. For the advanced trainees doing a little more than they did last time will be difficult but doable. For the recovering patients it will not involve much to take them to a point of exercise they are not used to handling.
 

Both groups will improve but the recovering patients often show the most profound improvement, as they start at a much lower base line. Each week they come in a little stronger and each week we progressively increase the weights lifted by small increments. After a few months they are dramatically stronger.

Aerobic activity has been stressed as necessary for cardiovascular health. This cannot occur if the muscles are too weak to allow adequate aerobic activity.

Another quote from the study:

“For the three treatment groups, 30 of 42 subjects had one or more cardiovascular complication (arrhythmias, angina, ischemia, hypertension, hypotension) during the aerobic exercises as compared to only 1 subject with complications during the resistive exercises.”

An interesting result that speaks for itself.