As we age, it’s easy to get caught up in the pursuit of strength and performance. We’re constantly bombarded with motivational content about pushing our limits and achieving new feats of strength. But what happens when we start prioritizing strength over heart health, especially after the age of 40?

In my own journey, I’ve come to realize that training should support the rest of our lives. As we age, we must shift our focus to maintaining health and longevity, rather than just striving for bigger lifts or heavier weights. One of the most critical areas to address is heart health—especially since coronary heart disease becomes the leading cause of death after 44. So how can we exercise effectively for a healthy heart, without sacrificing strength? Here’s how.

Understanding How the Heart Adapts to Exercise

When you engage in exercise, your body, including your heart, adapts to the physical demands you place on it. However, the way your heart responds to strength and endurance training is quite different.

Strength training causes the heart to react by thickening its walls. This happens due to the increase in blood pressure that occurs when lifting weights, particularly when using techniques like the Valsalva maneuver (holding your breath during lifts). While it may seem like a thicker heart is beneficial, it’s important to understand that the heart’s chambers can shrink as a result, limiting its ability to pump blood efficiently.

On the other hand, endurance training causes the heart to expand and strengthen, allowing it to pump blood more effectively. Endurance athletes develop larger hearts to accommodate the increased volume of blood they need to circulate. However, excessive endurance training over time can lead to a condition called “athletic heart,” where the heart becomes too large and struggles to function properly, sometimes requiring medical intervention.

Balancing Strength and Cardio for Optimal Heart Health

The key to heart health is balance. If you’re someone who has been focusing primarily on strength training, it’s essential to incorporate aerobic exercises into your routine. This doesn’t mean giving up weightlifting entirely, but rather adjusting your focus to support both muscle strength and heart health.

While lifting weights can help you get stronger, it isn’t the most effective way to improve your heart’s ability to deliver oxygen. For that, you need aerobic exercises like running, cycling, swimming, or rowing. These exercises have a higher oxygen demand and will lead to greater cardiovascular benefits than any form of loaded cardio like sled pushing or circuit training.

It’s not enough to simply raise your heart rate. The heart needs sustained, rhythmic activity that challenges its efficiency in oxygen uptake. Strength training, while valuable, does not offer the same benefit for heart health as continuous, cyclic aerobic exercises.

How to Train for a Healthy Heart After 40

You can still enjoy lifting and strength training, but if you want to improve or maintain heart health as you age, you’ll need to add aerobic activities to your routine. The fastest way to boost heart health is through consistent, moderate-intensity exercise, such as walking. In fact, a daily walk of 30 to 60 minutes can significantly improve your cardiovascular fitness and help with body composition.

As you progress and become more comfortable, you can replace walking with other activities like running, cycling, rowing, or swimming. I recommend following a run/walk program to gradually build up to longer sessions of running. This method helps you avoid overloading your heart early on, while still building cardiovascular endurance.

Strength vs. Endurance: Finding the Right Balance

Ultimately, the key to a healthy heart after 40 is not to ignore strength training, but to integrate it with endurance work. Use strength training to build muscle, and use endurance training to improve heart health. The two methods serve different purposes, but when combined properly, they’ll work together to keep you fit and healthy as you age.

If you’re unsure about how to incorporate these exercises, start with a balanced routine that includes both weightlifting and aerobic exercises, like walking or running. Over time, you’ll find that your heart health improves while still achieving strength goals.

Remember, it’s not about lifting heavier weights or running faster for the sake of performance—it’s about doing the right exercises to support a long, healthy life.