A lot of guys are pushing for better defined abs, lats that’ll give their torso the perfect V-shape, or shoulders that’ll make Jean-Claude van Damme reach for a kaftan. But here’s one reason for putting your heart into your workout.

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Your heart is a fist-sized lump of muscle that operates every moment of your life. You may think it stood still the time you spotted Kerry McGregor at the V&A Waterfront. It didn’t, or you wouldn’t be reading this now.

The heart is just a muscle
It’s easy to forget that the heart is just a muscle, albeit a complex, pretty fantastic one. As you learnt in Biology, it has four chambers, which propel blood through your body, making sure that there’s always enough oxygen in your bloodstream. Not only that, but it has tiny electrical nodes that transmit impulses to the cardiac muscle, making it pump in perfect rhythm, just like a well-tuned four-cylinder engine.

But here’s a thought for those blokes who spend every evening at home, accompanied by a TV remote control, a bowl of crisps and a six-pack. Even if the crisps are fat-free and the six-pack is comprised of the finest mineral water, you’re not doing your heart any favours.

Couch potatoes have small hearts
That’s because like all your muscles, it shrinks and grows, depending on whether it’s being used. The smaller it is, the faster it will beat, And – chances are – the less time you will have to live.

Sound daunting? Fear not. There’s hope for even the most recidivist gym-goer. Get in three 40-minute sessions of cardiovascular exercise each week and you’ll reverse the trend. Within a few months of starting regular exercise, you heart muscle will begin to grow in size, which will mean it pump more blood with every beat. In turn this will mean it can beat more slowly. That’s because its capacity and strength increase the more it’s used, like switching to a larger-capacity engine.

Paradoxically, it’ll be able to pump faster while you exercise, but will quickly return to a slower rate – it’s called a resting rate – more slowly than when you were unfit.

Fit hearts can beat 190 times per minute
Consider the hearts of the super-fit. For a real athlete, like a sprinter, swimmer or even a Formula One driver – as opposed to a darts or snooker player – fitness means having a heart that can hit around 190 beats per minute (bpm).

Yes, you say – that happened the time I thought I’d won the Lotto. The trick, as we said, is the resting rate, and the time it takes your heart to reach that after you stop exercising.

F1 driver David Couthard’s heart beats at around 196bpm during a race, but within five minutes of it ending, it’s down to 48bpm. His resting heart rate is 40bpm. That’s close to the legendary New Zealand runner Jack Lovelock, whose resting pulse rate was 32. The average bloke has a resting rate of around 65bpm.

Sports such as cycling, swimming and rowing will all improve your cardiac health. Not all sports will, though. Power-lifting, for instance, doesn’t get your heart rate up in the same way that aerobic exercise does.

So, by all means find an exercise you love, whether it’s cycling, surfing or sea kayaking. And by all means work on looking ripped, with enough self-tan oil to drown Dean Martin. Just make sure your most important muscle gets its thrice-weekly workout. The rest is a bonus. – (William Smook)

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