When doing physical exercise, Women obtain greater benefits for their cardiovascular health than men. In fact, the reduction in mortality associated with sports practice is much greater for women making the same effort. This is one of the conclusions of the event #MoveYourHeartorganized by Corazón de Mujer to raise awareness about the importance of physical activity in female cardiovascular health. And so says science, in fact, according to a recent North American study published in the journal Journal of the American College of Cardiology, women obtain a greater benefit from physical exercise than men. According to the researchers, “performing regular aerobic physical activity was associated with a reduction in the risk of cardiovascular mortality of 14% in men and 36% in women.”
Furthermore, in their case, with less physical activity they obtained the same impact since women needed 140 minutes of aerobic exercise to achieve the same mortality reduction as men, which required 300 minutes.
Regarding the parameters of strength exercises, a weekly session of one woman is equivalent to three sessions performed by a man in terms of cardiac protection.
Although it is known that men do more sports than women (43% vs 37% in aerobic exercises and 28% vs 20% in strength exercises), The advantages that women obtain are greater.
Why is this happening? According to the authors of the study, School of Clinical Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, There are several potential explanations for these conclusions. “It has long been known that men have a significantly greater exercise capacity than women at all ages.. “This may be due in part to attributes that include, on average, proportionally larger hearts, wider pulmonary airways, greater lung diffusing capacity, and larger muscle fibers in men compared to women.”
In particular, “Men have approximately 38% more lean body mass compared to women, so a relatively lower absolute limit on exercise-induced vasodilatory capacity imposed by substantially lower lean and muscle mass in women may be proportionally higher. efficiently improved by blood pressure-strengthened muscle and especially by muscle strengthening from the same dose.”
This phenomenon “could underlie marked sex differences in mortality risk reduction observed from equivalent frequencies of muscle strengthening activity.” Physiology studies have shown that women exhibit greater vascular conductance and blood flow during exercise, and that women have a greater density of capillaries per unit of skeletal muscle compared to men. Consequently, although women generally have lower muscle strength at the start of the studywhen both men and women perform strength training, women experience greater relative improvements in strength, which is a stronger predictor of mortality than muscle mass.
For Leticia Fernández-Friera, cardiologist at Atria Clinic and promoter of the Corazón de Mujer movement, “The gender gap works in their favor and the effort they have to make to protect their hearts is less. One piece of information in favor, finally, that encourages us to continue fighting to raise awareness among women to take care of themselves, especially knowing that 80% of deaths from this cause can be avoided and recognizing physical exercise as a very useful tool to achieve this.”
In her opinion, this fact should serve to encourage women to exercise and to fight against a sedentary lifestyle, one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular health in the female population. And, as she explained, “Lack of physical activity carries different risks of cardiovascular disease, since it increases the chances of clots, high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and other cardiac events. In fact, increasing its practice is known to help reduce the risk of heart disease by 30-40%”.
How much would be the minimum exercise we should do? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the minimum would be to carry out activities moderate aerobic physical exercises of 150 to 300 minutes or intense aerobic exercises of 75 to 150 minutes a week.
The benefits of sports in water
One of the main problems of the population when it comes to playing sports is that they do not find an activity that they like and that motivates them. This causes many people who start playing sports to quit due to lack of motivation.
Therefore, to maintain physical activity and sports it is key to find an activity that we like. In this sense, During the event, the experts talked about exercises in the water, such as aquafitness.
“Water allows us to continue a preventive aspect of cardiovascular health such as exercise, since stopping due to lack of physical fitness, overweight, joint pain, pregnancy or injuries “It is not a recommended option to keep our heart healthy,” says Fernández-Friera.
As Andrea Guzmán, physiotherapist, pointed out, the benefits of water are many since “thanks In addition to buoyancy, water gives us a lower perception of the weight of our body so that we can reduce the stress and load on the joints, bones and muscles, making the practice easier. Besides, Doing it in hot water increases the blood supply and promotes the dilation of the vessels.“, improving muscle strength and endurance, helping to reduce pain and promote relaxation,” says the specialist.
Aquafitness provides extra support for women at different stages of life. During pregnancy it helps to work on both joint mobility, especially of the pelvis and hip, and increased muscle work, to strengthen the most vulnerable areas, strengthen the pelvic floor and preserve correct postural hygiene. “This is how we help pregnant women avoid possible typical pregnancy ailments and to prepare for childbirth. In addition, benefits are obtained at the circulatory level, since it prevents and reduces fluid retention, as well as the appearance of varicose veins,” Guzmán argues.
Sports and pregnancy
In this sense, Corazón de Mujer warns of the need to take care of the heart during pregnancy. “This is a premonitory stage of the need to take care of a woman’s heart.since pathologies such as high blood pressure during pregnancy or gestational diabetes are indicative for periodic check-ups for cardiovascular prevention,” says Dr. Fernández-Friera.
Sport and menopause
Another stage for women in which practicing sports, and more specifically aquafitness, can be key is menopause. The decrease in bone density is one of the possible consequences of menopause – at this stage women lose between 1% and 2.5% bone mass–, increasing the risk of suffering from osteoporosis or suffering from possible fractures. Not in vain, One in five women over 45 years of age has some degree of osteoarticular involvement. “Thanks to exercise in the aquatic environment we help strengthen the musculoskeletal system through the resistance offered by water, reducing the impact it entails at the joint level, “so it is very beneficial to minimize the impact of menopause,” Guzmán points out.
