Why being active is good for your heart

It has long been known that keeping active can help to improve your health – from reducing your risk of heart attacks and strokes to improving mental health or lowering the risk of many cancers. But despite this, most of us in the UK don’t meet the physical activity recommendations. And exercise can be a challenge for some people with certain health problems.

Exercise for all

Some people with heart and circulatory conditions may struggle to keep physically active, which means they miss out on the benefits it can bring, both to overall health and wellbeing and in helping to manage their condition. Lack of regular physical activity could lead to risk factors including high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and being overweight, which increases further their risk of heart and circulatory diseases.

Exercise can be a particular challenge for some people with peripheral arterial disease (PAD), which is caused by a build-up of fatty deposits inside the walls of the arteries in the legs. This reduces blood flow to the legs and feet and can lead to leg pain when walking. BHF-funded research led by Professor Jonathan Beard at the University of Sheffield showed in 2014 that Nordic pole walking (a type of gentle exercise that exercises the full body, with the help of special walking poles), makes it easier for people with PAD to exercise.

Nordic pole walking is now recommended on the NHS website to help everyone improve their fitness, to lose weight and to tone the whole body.

Getting children moving

There have been many school initiatives to encourage children to be more physically active. Back in 1987, we launched the “Jump Rope for Heart” challenge, to encourage children to get skipping to keep fit while raising vital funds for BHF research. In the last 33 years, the challenge has involved thousands of schools and youth groups throughout the UK and has helped to raise over £10 million to fund life-saving research.

It’s also important to understand more about why children don’t exercise as much as they should. The BHF is funding a study led by Professor Russ Jago and his team at the University of Bristol, looking at how parents, friends and other factors influence a child’s exercise levels. Worryingly, the team have already found that UK children aged eight to nine are less active than those aged five to six. This research could reveal new ways to get children more active, helping to prevent health problems in later life.

It doesn’t take a marathon

In 2018, BHF-funded research led by Dr Barbara Jefferis at University College London showed that any amount of physical activity, no matter how long or short, is good for heart and circulatory health. We’re all recommended to do at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week (or 75 minutes of vigorous activity) but this can be made up of as many shorter sessions as you want. Before that, the recommendation had been to do at least 10 minutes at a time. Dr Jefferis’ research provided evidence that this recommendation was no longer necessary, and influenced the Chief Medical Officers’ Physical activity guidelines for the UK published in 2019. This is good news for those people who may feel daunted by the idea of exercising for longer than 10 minutes.

We are also giving people extra motivation to keep active by offering ways to exercise and raise money for our life-saving research. Our virtual challenges, such as MyCycle and My Steps Challenges, are offering new ways to get active and are suitable for people with heart and circulatory conditions, too.

First published 1st June 2021