11. When push comes to shove. Your blood rushes through your arteries with enough pressure to lift a column of blood 5 feet into the air.

12. Be still my beating heart. If your heart beats approximately 72 times every minute, by the time you turn 65, your heart will have beaten about 2.5 billion times.

13. No, thank you, I'm full. If you are 25 pounds overweight, you have nearly 5,000 extra miles of blood vessels though which your heart must pump blood.

14. Keep your left up. A knockout while boxing occurs when a boxer is hit by a forceful blow that causes a chain reaction in his circulatory system. This reaction ultimately causes the supply of blood in the heart, lungs and brain to pool in the boxer's abdomen, and to decrease the circulation in his brain, resulting in a loss of consciousness.

15. Almost as fast as a speeding bullet. It only takes about 23 seconds for blood to circulate through your entire body.

16. Nothing so valuable as your heart. The Egyptians thought so highly of the heart that they did not remove it from a corpse, as they did other internal organs, but mummified it along with the rest of the body.

17. It takes two to tango. Your heart can be viewed as having two halves. All factors considered, the left half of your heart is much stronger and better developed than the right half. This dichotomy exists because the left half has to pump blood through your entire body, while the right half only has to pump blood through the lungs.

18. On the go. Between now and old age, you will walk about 70,000 miles. Walking is one of the best activities you can do to keep your heart-lung complex in good working condition.

19. Safety valves. When you stand up, if you didn't have valves in your veins, all the blood in your body would literally fall downward, filling up your legs and feet.

20. Taking a break. Your heart rests between beats. If the length of time of these rests over your lifetime were added up, you would find that your heart stands still for about 20 years.

21. True blue. Inside your body, your blood is blue. Blood turns red only when it mixes with oxygen, which is what occurs when you cut yourself and bleed.

22. Keep them coming. Every second, your body manufactures 2.5 million new red blood cells. During the period of a month, all your red blood cells are replaced with new ones.

23. Blood thirsty. Although your heart accounts for only about one percent of your body weight, it uses five percent of the blood supply that flows through your body.

24. Haven't I been this way before? A single blood cell makes about three thousand round trips though the circulatory system every day.

25. Avoid a false reading. The best spot for taking your pulse following heavy exercise is your wrist. Pressure on your carotid artery (in your neck) can slow your heart rate, thereby giving you a false reading on the intensity level of your workout.

26. Exercise to your heart's content. Studies show that aerobic exercise offers more "protection" to your heart than pushing your biological clock back 19 years.

27. The killing battle. More Americans die from cardiovascular disease in a single year (about 1 million) than have died collectively in all the wars Americans have ever fought.

28. A healthy ratio. The optimal ratio between total blood cholesterol and HDL (the "good" cholesterol) should be 3.5 or lower. Anything higher places you at an increased risk for heart disease.

29. At risk for coronary heart disease. More than half of all Americans have blood cholesterol levels that are too high.

30. A systematic slow down. Your resting heart rate decreases approximately one beat per minute for every one to two weeks of aerobic conditioning for the first 10 to 20 weeks of training.

31. What time is it? Your heart has a regular, daily rhythm that speeds up during the day and slows down at night.

32. What's up Doc? A Harvard University study revealed that 84 percent of patients who sought a second opinion after being scheduled for a heart bypass were told that they didn't need one. None of the people who subsequently canceled their surgeries died during the study's two-year follow-up.

33. Heart healthy. Research shows that cardiac rehab programs that include exercise reduce the risk of death by 20 percent.

34. Lung power lapse. Your breathing capacity decreases as you age (i.e., the total volume of oxygen inhaled with each breath declines). For example, the oxygen intake of an individual over the age of 80 is only half that of someone under 30.

35. No warning. Often, the first symptom of cardiac trouble is a heart attack or death.

36. Adding up the damage. A cholesterol test is a diagnostic test for heart health that measures the fatty particles in your bloodstream that can accumulate in your arteries. (Average cost $35 to $40.)

37. Assessing the state of your heart. A stress test is a diagnostic test to assess heart health that involves your running on a treadmill linked to an electrocardiogram machine. (Average cost $250 to $300.)

38. A picture of health. A thallium stress test is a diagnostic test for heart health in which radioactive thallium is injected into your vein during a stress test. A picture similar to an X-ray is taken which provides images that help pinpoint problems. (Average cost $700 to $800.)

39. Dye-ing for the facts. An angiogram is a diagnostic test to assess heart health in which a long tube is inserted into a leg artery to deliver a radioactive dye to your coronary arteries. An X-ray is then taken to provide images to help detect the narrowing of coronary arteries. (Average cost $2,500 to $3,000.)

40. A matter of gender. All factors considered, several cardiovascular-related, physiological differences exist between men and women -- most of which place women at a disadvantage in aerobic endurance activities.

41. The ultimate measure of heart-lung health. Aerobic fitness describes how well you are able to take oxygen from the atmosphere into your lungs and blood, then pump it to your working muscles, and utilize it to oxidize carbohydrates and fats to produce energy.

42. You get what you train for. When you engage in an exercise modality on a regular basis, such as jogging or stair climbing, you recruit the same muscle fibers and energy pathways over and over again. After a period of time, your body will adapt to the demands imposed on it by making adjustments. These adjustments are called the "training effect."

43. Only a by-product. Aerobic fitness is developed when the metabolic rate and the oxygen consumption of your muscles are elevated and that elevation is sustained for a sufficient amount of time to overload your aerobic enzyme systems. Raising your heart rate will not make you more aerobically fit. Your heart rate is only a convenient external indicator of your oxygen consumption.

44. Hit what you aim for. Muscle is the primary target organ of aerobic training. The effects of aerobic training on muscle involves the use of oxygen as it relates to energy production.

45. The recipe for wellness. The American College of Sports Medicine's recommendation for prescribing aerobic exercise is to engage in rhythmic, large-muscle activities on a continuous basis (20 to 60 minutes) at an intensity level somewhere between 60 and 90 percent of your max heart rate, three to four times per week.

46. Lung power. Aerobic training improves the condition and efficiency of your breathing muscles so that your body can utilize more lung capacity during exercise.

47. When less is more. An aerobically fit (trained) individual uses fewer breaths to move the same amount of air.

48. Talk is cheap. If you can't carry on a conversation when you're exercising, you may be training too hard.

49. Exercise, not drugs. Aerobic exercise is among the best preventive medicine available.

50. Smart jocks. People with more education tend to be more physically active.

A heads-up approach

The human body is an amazing machine. Like most machines, take care of it and it can serve you well. Abuse it, and eventually, it will malfunction. No part of your body deserves more care and attention than your heart. Accordingly, adopt a heads-up approach to life. Be smart. Be heart smart. Exercise regularly.

SUGGESTED REFERENCES

Editors of Prevention Magazine. Prevention's Giant Book of Health Facts. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press; 1991.

Peterson, J. A., & C.X. Bryant (eds.). The StairMaster Fitness Handbook. Indianapolis, IN: Masters Press; 1992.

Seuling, B. You Can't Sneeze With Your Eyes Open. New York, NY: Lodestar Books; 1986.

Sharkey, B. Physiology of Fitness (3rd ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers; 1990.

 

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