Cardiac training is a physical activity at a certain pulse and pace, which allows you to stretch the heart in volume. There are two types of cardiac hypertrophy, one of which makes the heart more powerful, larger, increases its service life and, in general, is what we will strive for. The second type of cardiac hypertrophy leads to the formation of dead tissue, which eventually leads to myocardial infarction. This bad kind of hypertrophy occurs when an athlete does not train properly, both during their usual training and during the heart training itself. If you want to progress in your workouts, increase muscle mass, in general, work on muscle qualities, then the heart must be trained. If you do not do this, then the “sports heart” is guaranteed for you!

The relevance of heart training for a bodybuilder is especially acute, since an untrained heart will be overloaded not only during the training itself, but also in everyday life. The essence of bodybuilding is to increase muscle mass, which naturally forces the heart to pump blood more intensively. If the heart is trained, large, then it works in a normal pulse, but if the heart is untrained, then the pulse is constantly rapid. Everything is very simple! A large and strong heart in one contraction produces more efficiency than the heart of an ordinary person. If your muscles are twice as large as the average man, and the heart is the same as his, then it, of course, will not be able to cope!

During training, the situation looks even worse, and if you go out to play football, you will start to suffocate in just a few minutes of the game! Why? The cardiac cycle is the contraction and subsequent relaxation of the heart. In scientific terms, atrial and ventricular systole occurs, and then diastole occurs. When the work of the heart becomes very intense, the diastole is very short. The heart contracts, does not have time to relax, immediately contracts again. At this moment, the pulse rises over 180, and growth factors, including lactic acid, begin to form in the heart. As a result of such work of the heart muscle, heart cells begin to die for longer than 1-2 minutes. In the end, we get a “sports heart” – large in size, but for the most part dead.

To finally convince you of the need to train the heart, it should be noted that the heart is the only muscle that works constantly. All other muscles tense only when performing some special task, but the heart does not. Rather, the task that the heart performs is to ensure the vital activity of our body. Therefore, if you want to live long and you are interested in maintaining health until old age, then you need to train your heart! In addition, as a pleasant addition, you will have the opportunity to increase the intensity of your workout in the gym, thanks to which the KFS will grow significantly.

Heart training methods

D-hypertrophy is a bad hypertrophy of the heart, which leads to the formation of an “athletic heart”. But this process occurs because lactic acid is formed in the heart, it “acidifies”, and this happens only if you train for more than 90 seconds in a pulse of 180. However, if within 60 seconds you accelerate the pulse to 180, and then work out at this pulse for another 30 seconds, after which you rest for a minute and a half, then again make an approach, rest again, and so on, then such a heart training will suit you. benefit. The problem is, nobody trains like that! Usually, especially in group sports, various sections, the coach gives everyone one task, and athletes of different levels of training are engaged in the group, as a result, half of the guys turn their faces red, their eyes pop out, and the coach yells at them so that they don’t whine. This is not how you should do it!

Training the heart in short series of 90 seconds with rest is the right training option, but the pulse must be kept within 180 beats per second, and such training can be done no more than 1 time per week. The duration of such a workout is no more than 40 minutes. It is necessary to start practicing according to this scheme gradually, without fanaticism. If you decide to become a champion in a week, then the result of such training will not be a strengthening of the heart, but an increase in the volume of the walls of the heart. In other words, the walls of the heart thicken due to dead tissue, which eventually leads to myocardial infarction.
L-hypertrophy is a good hypertrophy of the heart, which occurs due to the expansion of the heart in volume, without the formation of dead tissue. In order for such hypertrophy has occurred, the heart must be trained in the mode of 120-150 beats per minute. The duration of such training ranges from 2 hours to 12, but the latter is used only by cyclists to achieve special tasks. The optimal training time is 2 hours. It is recommended to train the heart every day, and if you do two workouts a day, the effect will be even better. You will most likely achieve sufficient cardiac hypertrophy in 5-7 months of training. It is not worth giving up training of the heart muscle, because, like any muscle, the heart can be overtrained.

Exercises to train the heart

Walking is the best way to train your heart because it makes it very easy to control your heart rate. Of course, it is desirable to purchase a heart rate monitor that will allow you to respond more quickly to changes in its frequency. And, in general, a heart rate monitor is very convenient! However, we recommend that you start exercising without it, as bad training is better than none! And the heart rate monitor is a great excuse for a year and a half why you can’t start training your heart. Start walking, every day, in the morning, 2 hours, measure your pulse with your middle finger and you will succeed! Actually, this method of training allows you to achieve L-hypertrophy of the heart.

Compound exercises are all multi-joint exercises that you use in your mass training. Your best bet is to use the bench press, squat, deadlift, military press, wide grip pull-ups, and dips. You should train with light weights that allow you to perform exercises in 40-50 repetitions, while you will train for a long time, the rest is short, so the working weight should be appropriate. If you chase two hares, you won’t catch one! This is exactly the principle at work here. Therefore, select a weight with which you can perform 40-50 repetitions, rest for a minute, then do another repetition and so on until the end of the workout. With these exercises, you can train both in the L-hypertrophy mode and in the D-hypertrophy mode. The latter option, of course, is very suitable for combining it with strength training, but it is better to train with a trainer.

There are many other exercises for training the heart, since it trains in the case when the pulse starts to go off scale for 120, and the heart has to work in this mode for a long time. It doesn’t matter what exactly you are doing, even if you are training your forearm, your pulse is important. Another thing is that walking, running and basic exercises make it easier to achieve such a pulse, but, in fact, only the pulse and the time that the heart is in the right pulse matters. For L-hypertrophy, the pulse is 120-150 beats per minute, the duration of the workout is at least 2 hours, you can train twice a day. For D-hypertrophy, the pulse is over 180, but the duration of continuous load on the heart does not exceed 90 seconds, and the training lasts no longer than 40 minutes. You can train for D-hypertrophy of the heart no more than 1 time per week.