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The Easy Heart Workout

Dr Irv Dardik’s heart-saving LiveWaves programme – based on the theory that a good heart workout requires you to raise your heart rate and then allow it to recover – requires just one hour of your time every month. By spiking your heart rate with intense exercise and then teaching it to fall back to pre-exertion rates rapidly, you’re training your heart to recover quickly from a level of exertion that might prove to be harmful, or worse, fatal. Here’s how to work it.

Step 1
Strap on a heart-rate monitor and pump away for 45 seconds, driving your heart rate up. (If your resting heart rate is 72, you should reach slightly more than twice that in at the end of the 45 seconds.)

Step 2
Rest until your heart rate approaches its pre-exercise rate – between two and five minutes – and then repeat, allowing it to drop back to your resting rate.

Step 3
Continue the routine on the same or different equipment, again letting your heart rate drop afterwards.

Step 4
By the fourth cycle, your heart won’t make it all the way back to its pre-exercise rate. That’s okay.

Step 5
After four or five cycles, it’s time for the final wave, where you want to get your heart up to its max rate (deduct your age from 220bpm and you’re about there). Afterward, give your heart plenty of time to drop to resting speed.

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