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Lead Stories: Sunday, November 23, 2008

Does your heart get tired when running and/or during other types of exercise?

Posted March 26th, 2007 at 9:59 AM by Hariz Siddiqui

Section: Health & Fitness, Exercise

A healthy heart is so strong that it is almost never a cause of tiredness during exercise.

Tiredness during exercise comes from your muscles. They run out of fuel or out of oxygen. Skeletal muscles use both fat and sugar for energy.

When your muscles run out of their stored sugar supply, called glycogen, they cannot contract and function adequately. You feel tired, your muscles hurt and you have difficulty coordinating them.

On the other hand, your heart muscle gets energy directly from fat and sugar in your blood and even from a breakdown product of metabolism called lactic acid. It is virtually impossible for the heart muscle to run out of fuel unless you are starving to death.
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Don’t forget to warm-up
your heart!

Posted December 30th, 2006 at 7:00 AM by Jeanie Rebb

Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise

Most people know that you have to warm up skeletal muscles to help protect them from injury, but many do not know that warming up the heart muscle also helps to prevent heart attacks in people with blocked arteries leading to the heart

Before you try to run very fast, you can protect your muscles from injury by performing a series of runs of gradually-increasing intensity to increase the circulation of blood to your muscles.

The same principle applies to the heart.
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Use different types of exercise for fitness and muscle strength

Posted December 3rd, 2006 at 11:00 AM by Hariz Siddiqui

Section: Health & Fitness, Exercise

You can’t train for heart muscle fitness and skeletal muscle strength with the same exercises. To strengthen your heart muscle, you must exercise vigorously enough to speed up your heart rate and keep it elevated for a while. To strengthen your skeletal muscles, you need to exercise against increasing resistance in short, hard bouts. Read the rest of this entry »

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