Cardio exercises are great for you, but I’m confused. Since the heart is a muscle, does exercising it make it grow bigger, which could lead to heart disease?
My father has a enlarged heart and this question crossed my mind.
In: Biology
Enlarged hearts happen when blood pressure has gotten so high that the heart physically needs more strength to push blood through the arteries. So the heart builds more muscle and gets larger. This is not a response to activity level, it is a response to internal factors like more rigid arteries, fat build up along the inside or arteries, etc. This is a bad and inefficient compensation.
Cardio improves the way the body responds to activity. When you move large muscle groups in a repetitive way, those muscles burn through their energy stores quickly. They need more blood to restore it. So under normal circumstances your heart will pump faster and blood vessels will dilate. Improving cardio means improving those heart and blood vessel responses. They happen faster, are able to last long and become more precise (a big change if you need A LOT more energy, a small change if you need a little more energy). So the heart builds some muscle, but not in the same way as an enlarged heart does. It’s much more about the response to activity
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