Why Bodyweight Training Is Great for Your Heart

Long, drawn-out cardio sessions or strength training? Which should you be focusing most of your training time and energy on? For the average person (who’s not training for a specific race and just wants to be fit for life), I say neither. You should combine both for the most effective, time-efficient and heart-healthy workouts!

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Bodyweight training: The best of both worlds

Bodyweight training, as in the Results app, is the perfect combination of heart-healthy cardio plus muscle-building resistance training. Bodyweight exercises require many muscle groups to perform a specific movement, which is why you are able to zap a ton of calories while building muscle and getting that heart rate up. Get the benefits of both resistance training and cardio in half the time – are you in?

Here’s the thing, building muscle helps to rev up your metabolism and continue to torch calories even while at rest. Doing steady-state cardio sessions doesn’t have the same effect. While activities like running, cycling and swimming are great ways to boost endurance, stamina and help to reduce stress, a study published in the National Center for Biotechnology Information showed that these activities alone (without resistance training) can lead to muscle wasting (also due to aging) and overtraining.

Benefits for those with (or without) heart problems

In fact, because of the muscle atrophy (wasting) in patients with chronic heart failure, patients are actually encouraged to perform dynamic resistance exercises to build back the heart strength and improve endurance – safely, of course!

What’s more, resistance training on a regular basis can decrease the risk of heart disease, decrease blood pressure and stress placed on the heart and improve cholesterol. See, even for those of us without heart issues, getting in our bodyweight training can be a form of preventative action to combat against the risks mentioned.

Extremely effective & incredibly convenient

So, bottom line, you don’t really need to be doing long cardio sessions in order to benefit your heart. When you try out one of the workouts from the Results app, you’ll see what I mean. The ability to improve your muscle tone and get that heart rate elevated using only your own bodyweight is not only extremely effective, but incredibly convenient.

You can really do bodyweight training anywhere and everywhere. I always say: if you have room to lie down, you have room for a bodyweight training workout! It’s really that simple. And, after reading all the benefits above, it actually seems too good to be true, right? No gym? No equipment? This many benefits? Yes! Time to make bodyweight training a habit.

Start your 12-week body transformation plan today with the Runtastic Results app and start maximizing your workout effort and your heart health!

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