We have a new workout in town! Wim calls it: The Cardiovascular Workout! Just like you can go to the gym every day training your muscles to be lean and tight, the same you can do for your cardiovascular health!
The cardiovascular system, sometimes also called the vascular system or the circulatory system, consists of the blood, heart and blood vessels. It is in essence the highway of the human body; 125.000 km of blood vessels, pumping 6 liters of blood through your system. If you would put all these bloodvessels side by side, the string could wrap around the Earth a whopping 2.5 times!
Through these blood vessels everything is transported throughout your body: nutrients, toxins, acids, O2, CO2, and hormones in and out of the cells of your body. This highway of blood vessels all have tiny little muscles, which help to efficiently open up these veins (vasodilation) and close up the veins (vasoconstriction), in essence helping your heart pump the blood through your system! A proper working cardiovascular system means a good working infrastructure, directing the good stuff to the right places in your body and flushes the bad stuff out!
The interesting part of the Wim Hof Method is that the impact of cold exposure, as well as the WHM breathing, strains these little muscles in the veins to fully close (vasoconstrict) to keep the heat in, and to fully open up (vasodilate) to get the heat out of the body. When these muscles work properly, you are also giving a rest to you heart, as it doesn’t have to pump that hard!
What are some of the benefits of a cardiovascular workout using the cold, one of the Wim Hof Method pillars?
- Lower blood pressure
- Lower heart rate
- Strengthens Immune system
- Flushes out waste more efficiently
- Absorbs and directs nutrients and oxygens to your cells more efficiently
If you consider the fact that the main cause of deaths in the US, and 31% of deaths worldwide, is due to cardiovascular diseases (CVD), it really puts the importance of good cardiovascular health in perspective, and how the Wim Hof Method can be of benefit. Just like we go to the gym to work on our health, getting a full body workout, with the Wim Hof Method you can also get, as Wim dubbs it, a cardiovascular workout!
