This may provide some impetus for sedentary individuals to take up physical activity. Sesso says you don t need to be an Olympic athlete to reap the benefits of exercise, but you do need to push yourself to get your heart rate up. He says researchers found a 10-20 percent reduction of heart disease risk for people participating in greater amounts of vigorous exercise each week such as running, jogging, swimming laps, tennis, or aerobics. Those who participated in moderate activities, such as walking, yard work, golf or social dancing, had a 10 percent risk reduction. Stein, who is also a spokesman for the American Heart Association, says exercise also helps make the endothelial cells that line our arteries healthier.
Endothelial cells are vital in preventing the clogging and hardening of the arteries.
Shorter workouts provide more incentive Evidence that short sessions of exercise help the heart is good news for those who haven t been exercising. If you are just beginning, you can start off slowly by breaking your exercise into smaller time segments, and still get the benefit. Stein says this is better than trying to be too ambitious the first time out, which can often result in a sore back or sore muscles, and prompt you to stop doing everything. It s just rare to find someone who can t do this. If you exercise for 10 minutes three times a day, or 15 minutes two times a day, you re still getting in a half hour of exercise, which is beneficial, he says.