Over my 30+ years of supervising high-intensity exercise, one of the most common questions I get is:
“Is strength training safe for my heart?”
Often it’s followed with questions about exercise elevating blood pressure and heart rate and the potential risk of heart damage during the exercise performance.
If you are concerned about whether high-intensity Strength Training is safe for your heart or cardiovascular system, I feel very confident that when performed properly in a clinical environment like we offer at Desisto Strength Training, you’ll find it more than just safe but actually important for your heart health.
In fact I’d go as far to say that it will be beneficial to your heart.
A Quick Story
After a few months of training here at DST, one of my younger clients recently asked his doctor if it was safe to perform this intense workout due to his underlying heart issues.
Unfortunately, his doctor said he should consider stopping the program because of the risk to his heart. My client asked me if I could show him some studies and proof that it was still a good idea.
Therefore, I’ve decided to put a few important (albeit older) studies that covered this exact topic from different angles.
I have since offered these studies, and my anecdotal observations of my current clients over the years, to this doctor. I’m hopeful that he will research it further and determine how important it is for my client to continue. I expect he will find that it’s not only safe but that it’s beneficial.
My client has been very happy with his results and does not want to stop training this way. I believe when the doctor sees the difference in proper exercise under observation (such as we do here) in addition to the clearly referenced studies that he will give my beleaguered client the green light. We shall see!
Data from the American Heart Association:
Here is an important quote from Dr. Doug McGuff in his magnificent book, “Body By Science,” pp 113-114, Dr. Doug McGuff, MD and John Little:
The Benefits of the Big-Five Workout
This study demonstrated that the assumptions people had formerly held about weight training’s being dangerous for the heart were wrong. We had always been told that during weight training, the systemic vascular resistance was increased dramatically, so that the heart was now having to push against a lot more resistance, and that the blood was trapped in the working muscle. We were also told that cardiac return (the amount of blood returning to the heart) was diminished by weight training.
What we’ve since discovered is that the exact opposite is true: during high-intensity strength training, you’re having dilation of the blood vessels in the peripheral musculature, which leads to a decrease in systemic vascular resistance. The squeezing of the contracting muscles is actually milking venous blood back to the heart. The amount of blood returned to the right side of the heart determines the amount of blood that is ejected from the left side of the heart, and the amount of blood ejected from the left side of the heart during systole determines the amount of blood that backwashes to the base of the aorta during diastole (in other words, the volume of blood that passively rushes into the coronary arteries, which originate at the base of the aorta). (See Figure 5.2.) Coronary artery blood flow is directly proportionate to venous return (the amount of blood coming back to the right side of the heart), as that volume determines the amount of blood ejected out of the left side of the heart, which, in turn, determines the amount of blood that washes into the base of the aorta. (See Figure 5.3.) So, strength training can be defined as a form of exercise that enhances coronary artery blood flow, and it does so by a means that decreases systemic vascular resistance.
With strength training, you’re able to perform a type of exercise that enhances your coronary artery blood flow while simultaneously decreasing the amount of resistance against which your heart has to pump. The evidence is clear: strength training is a modality of exercise that is as safe and productive as possible from a cardiovascular standpoint. The American Heart Association has even included strength training as one of the major components of cardiac rehabilitation. The fact that it made this statement is an indicator of how powerful the evidence in favor of strength training is. It takes a considerable amount of objective data to get a conservative body to alter its position, as the AHA did in a scientific statement published August 2, 2007 in their journal Circulation. (The AHA had never embraced strength training before).
And now the studies showing the safety of proper strength training on cardiovascular health:
Clinical Exercise Studies Showing Safety Of Weight Training For The Heart
Results indicate that CWT protocols of varied intensity are safe for cardiac patients when compared to treadmill exercise, and changes in rest interval duration and load can impact the energy cost.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9559452/
Results indicate that CWT protocols of varied intensity are safe for cardiac patients when compared to treadmill exercise, and changes in rest interval duration and load can impact the energy cost.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10079415/
Medically supervised high-intensity strength training is well tolerated when added to the aerobic training of cardiac rehabilitation programs and allows patients to aggressively gain the strength and endurance they will need to complete daily living tasks at lower perceived efforts. Strength training also reduces cardiac risk factors by improving body composition and maximum treadmill exercise time.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3600238/
Diastolic blood pressure fell from 95.8 to 91.3 mm Hg. All changes were significant to at least P less than 0.05. Thus, circuit weight training can elicit marked improvements in muscular strength and modest improvements in body composition and cardiorespiratory endurance. Circuit weight training does not exacerbate resting or exercise blood pressure and may have beneficial effects.
So, is proper strength training a good idea if you have high blood-pressure or other cardiovascular issues? I think you can see that it might be the one thing that makes the biggest difference to your health!
Contact us to see if an evidence-based exercise program like ours can help you, too.
