February is also known as the love month because of Valentine’s Day celebrations. But while you’re planning for the perfect gift and picking the best place for a romantic dinner, it’s also important for us to remember to take care of our hearts. According to Dr. Crystal Roxas, a doctor fitness enthusiast, and fitness advocate, since our heart is a muscle, it gets stronger and healthier if we live an active lifestyle. With regular exercise and a healthy diet, we can keep our hearts strong and healthy.
In an episode of Body Goals on Plus Network, Roxas and cross-fit trainers Dino and Gino Mercado shared simple workouts that you can do at home to strengthen your hearts to avoid complications and disease. These workouts that will get our hearts pumping, tone our muscles, and burn calories are jumping jacks, mountain climbers, and squat thrusts.
These simple workouts are examples of aerobic exercises, which have several health benefits, such as increasing the efficiency of our respiration, improving our blood volume, distribution, and delivery to the muscles, and improving our cardiovascular efficiency.
Jumping Jack
– To do this workout, you first need to stand upright and then start jumping. When you jump, you need to move your feet outside, swing your arms and bring them up and then simultaneously bring them down, and your feet must return to their original position. You need to make sure that your lefts are shoulder-width apart as you jump, and that you sing both arms upwards from the sides before jumping back to your original position. This workout can be done in three sets of 30 seconds each.
Mountain Climber
– To do the mountain climber, you need to start with a plank position and put both hands on the floor. Then, you will bring your knees close to your chest alternately, which will engage your core. Afterward, you will bend the other knee back to your other position and repeat it the same number of times. As with the jumping jack, this simple workout can be done in three sets of 30 seconds each for better results.
Squat Thrust
– You will start this workout from a standing position and then bring your hands to the floor. Then, you will kick your legs back and go into a plank position, then jump back in and place your feet close to your hands. before returning to your starting position. This particular exercise engages your glutes as you stand up. Similar to the other workouts, the squat thrusts can be done in three sets of 30 seconds each.
But aside from performing these simple workouts, Dr. Crystal Roxas says that a healthy diet is also essential in order to have a healthy heart. Having a healthy diet can be challenging, as it requires you to avoid eating food that is high in cholesterol, salt, fat, and sugar. Fortunately, there are healthy dishes that you can prepare in order to have a healthy heart, such as tuna salad. To prepare this healthy dish, you just need a can of tuna, hardboiled egg, lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and sweet corn. This healthy dish is easy to prepare, but it offers many health benefits such as being a good source of Omega 3, rich in dietary fats, high in protein, and low in calories.
By doing these simple workouts at home and trying out this dish, you can keep your heart strong and healthy not just during the love month, but throughout the year as you work toward your physical fitness goals. For more fitness tips, you can watch episodes of Body Goals or visit Plus Network on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
