Your legs are tired, your breathing hard, your heart is pounding in your chest….

This is the feeling you get when you’ve just finished running fast… you know, like you used to do all the time when you were a kid.  Does the thought of feeling this way just flat-out sound terrible?  It’s not as bad as you might think and I bet I can do a little convincing that might get you to think otherwise.

In case you didn’t know, February is Heart Health Month.  It’s a chance for us health professionals to focus on heart disease and how to prevent it… and for once, take the focus off of the scale.  So lets stop obsessing about the our weight this month and lets think about our hearts.  

First, let’s learn some fun facts about this miracle muscle:

• The Chinese believed that the human heart was the center of happiness, explaining the reason why we associate the heart with Valentines Day.
• A broken heart is a real thing.  When something really sad, or devastating happens in one’s life, physiological changes occur that heighten the risk for a heart attack.
• Your heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood through your body everyday.  And if you were to lay out all of your blood vessels in a line, they would wrap around the earth more than two times!!  Crazy!!!
• Your heart communicates!  Not only does it communicate with your own brain, but the electromagnetic field of one’s heart can actually be picked up by the brain of an individual touching or standing a few feet away from you.  The power of love and touch!

What an amazing gift at the center of our body (ok, left center). Not only does it work extremely hard to keep us alive, but it can actually heal those around us…. AMAZING!   With that said, why would we not do everything in our power to treat our hearts as well as we treat our brand new car, our dearest loved one, or anything else that you go above and beyond to protect.  We should be doing the same for our hearts.  Unfortunately, the majority of us are stressed out, have too many “cheat meals”, and sit way too much; explaining why heart disease is the leading cause of death. 

Eating right and exercising are some of the most important things that we can do to keep our heart strong and healthy.  And more specifically, there are some things you can be doing in your workout routine that get there.  Sprinting in particular, can play an important role in protecting your heart. The key here is the intensity of sprinting and the added bonus of shorter duration.  With short bouts of harder efforts, followed by a rest period, one can reap the same heart benefits as a longer endurance run. For example, 60 minutes of slow jogging can be replaced with 10 minutes of high intensity sprinting, and still reap the save cardiovascular benefits. Furthermore, a study published in The American Journal of Physiology demonstrated that individuals who did sprints workouts, three days a week for 15-25 minutes received the same heart health benefits as someone that ran at a slower intensity, 5 days of the week for about 45-60 minutes.

I’d like to ask you a question… Do you wish you had more time in your life?  I am fairly certain that 99.99% of Americas would say a big, loud, YES!  I hear it over, and over, and over,  “I just don’t have time…”   In all seriousness, we are all busy with too much going on but we HAVE to make time for ourselves in order to take care of our bodies, so that we have the most amount of time on this planet to spend with friends and family doing things that make life worthwhile.  With all that said, by adding in or replacing some of that distance running with a sprint workout, you are doing good for your heart and saving some time to do the fun things in life through to your late years. 

I’d like to challenge you to a 30 day commitment: Do at least one sprint workout a week for this next month.  Write up a contract, promise yourself, whatever it is, make a 30 day commitment to sprinting once a week.  Have a hurt knee?  Well, you can do a sprint workout on a bike, rower, elliptical or the pool.  Remember, it’s working at a high intensity for a short duration then taking a rest break, therefore it can be done anywhere on anything.  Well not anything but you get the idea 😉

Here are a few ideas:

First, always start with an easy 5 minute jog with active stretching. 

Workout 1
5 rounds of:
30 second very hard followed by 30 seconds rest (walk slowly)
1 minute moderately hard followed by 1 minute rest
2 minutes hard/strong relaxed pace following by 2 minutes rest

Workout 2
3 rounds of:
1 minute hard followed by 1:30 minute rest

4 rounds of:
45 seconds moderately hard followed by 1 minute rest

5 rounds of:
20 seconds very hard following by 45 seconds rest

As mentioned in a previous blog entry of mine, balance is key, so I’d recommend no more than two-three sprint workouts as week.  On other days of the week, moderate-paced endurance workout are a great way to repair and reap the benefits of what that has to offer.

Happy Sprinting!

Julie (AKA: The Peanut Butter Loving Sprinter)