How does exercising impact my heart?

Your heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute (bpm). Your heart, like any other muscle, needs physical activity to keep it healthy and we can use wearables to measure your heart rate using an optical heart-rate sensor or an ECG.

How does exercising impact my body?

Exercising causes your heart rate to increase substantially, the more intensely you exercise, the higher your heart rate will be. Your heart has to work extra hard to pump more oxygen-rich blood around your body.

Why does this happen?

Let's start from the basics. Breathing is the process through which you supply your body with the oxygen it needs, and expel carbon dioxide so that it can stay in balance. When you breathe in oxygen, it enters the lungs then passes into the alveoli. The alveoli are tiny air sacs that play a major role in respiration by exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules back and forth through the bloodstream. They facilitate the oxygenation of the blood as CO2 is expelled through the nose or mouth and represent the endpoint of the respiratory system.

Oxygen from the alveoli then travels to the muscles via red blood cells and is finally used to break down glucose, creating fuel for your muscles in the form of ATP - the source of energy that keeps your body functioning.

As you exercise with increasing intensity, this process speeds up. Your muscles are hard at work and need more fuel in order to function effectively. This causes your breathing and heart rate to increase allowing you to inhale more oxygen and also push your blood around your body to deliver that oxygen to the muscles converting available glucose into ATP. Your blood pressure also increases to deliver the blood to your muscles, and your blood vessels respond by enlarging and dilating to enable more blood flow.

Repeating this process over and over will make it more efficient as your body responds by repeatedly changing state. Regular exercise therefore improves the muscles' ability to pull oxygen out of the blood, reducing the need for the heart to pump more blood to the muscles during rest. Your muscles become more efficient at extracting the oxygen. It also lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, enabling you to exercise longer before you get tired because your heart is working more efficiently. The dilation during exercise and eventual contraction of blood vessels (after exercise) acts as a form of plumbing for your cardiovascular system clearing out any bad cholesterol, or fats found in blood.

What benefit does exercising have to my heart?

As mentioned, your heart becomes more efficient with exercise. When you exercise, your muscles help to circulate blood throughout the body taking some of the strain and effort off the heart. Not as much work is needed to pump blood and the heart becomes stronger over time.

Exercise also has long-term cardiovascular benefits. This includes decreased resting heart rate, improved ability to draw in deeper breaths, reduced resting blood pressure, increased calories burned to aid weight loss and reduced risk of heart disease. These cardiovascular benefits all help to keep your cholesterol in check.

What types of exercise should I do?

The impact of exercise on the cardiovascular system varies depending on which form of exercise you do.

Cardio / aerobic exerciseSustained exercise that increases your heart rate and gets you working hard is a great method of forcing your heart to work hard. Aerobic exercise like running, cycling, or swimming at moderate intensity makes your heart more efficient by pumping more blood with each beat.

Resistance trainingWeight lifting, whilst not as targeted as aerobic exercise for improving heart efficiency, also has strong benefits for the cardiovascular system. Specifically, resistance training provides a different vascular response than aerobic exercise by increasing blood flow to the limbs. However, resistance training should be complemented with other forms of exercise as it increases the thickness and strength of the heart. Failure to do so can lead to left ventricle hypertrophy forcing the heart to pump faster and harder to circulate the same volume of blood potentially leading to heart complications.

Yoga, light weight trainingRelaxing movements of this category may lower blood pressure almost as well as moderate-intensity aerobic exercises, especially in people with cardiovascular disease.

How can I use wearables to keep my heart in check?

Wearables can give us a good indication of the health of our heart. Most wearables use an optical HR sensor to measure your heart rate and do this continuously throughout the day. Paying attention to how your heart rate varies can help you determine if anything is wrong.

Some wearables also have a built in ECG - this allows for more accurate heart rate tracking and also data on your HRV, which can alert you if your heart rate is irregular.

Furthermore, some wearables such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 have a built in blood pressure monitor giving us further detail on the health of our heart and blood vessels.

So, keep your heart in check and maintain good exercise habits!