DALLAS — Pumping a little iron can help elderly nursing home residents and heart failure patients gain strength for everyday life, the American Heart Association says, expanding on earlier advice.
"Those folks are capable of exercise training benefits, and certainly resistance training is part of that," said Mark Williams, who led the group that wrote the new guidance published Monday online in the journal Circulation. Williams said resistance training — whether it's lifting weights or doing sit-ups — should be used as a complement to aerobic exercise.
"A lot of people after having a heart attack or heart failure think they need to take it easy," said Dr. Amit Khera, director of cardiac rehabilitation at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He said broader guidance should help reassure doctors and patients that it's probably OK for most people to start exercising after heart trouble.
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Khera said cardiac patients using weights are often restricted to 1- to 5-pound weights for the first couple of weeks.
The Heart Association statement cited one study of a 10-week period of resistance training among nursing home residents with an average age of 87 that resulted in improvements in strength and stair-climbing power. The statement recommends starting out slow, setting the resistance or weight load at a moderate level to achieve the prescribed repetition range without straining.
On the Net
• American Heart Association: www.americanheart.org
