Everywhere you look there seems to be countless advice on the benefits of having a strong heart. You see controversy everywhere of whether intense cardio workouts or moderate cardio is the better way to achieve and maintain optimal health.

Hundreds of thousands of books are written on the benefits from medical journals to fitness magazines extolling the benefits of putting a powerful cardio routine into your exercise to keep you and your heart healthy and strong.

But few seem to mention the benefits of relaxing the heart quickly from intense beating and training it to have an elastic quality - and elastic resilience.

It's elasticity of the heart, arteries, and capillaries that will give you super strength, stamina and energy from your youth well into old age.

Many think that just doing quick sprints or intense spurts of bodyweight exercises, super sets of weights, or kettlebells will automatically give them this elasticity. But it doesn't come automatically for everyone.

You must train your heart to relax quickly from extreme tensions just as you would train your muscles to relax quickly after a quick jab or punch so you have maximum recoil and elasticity.

A quick release to muscular contractions in a punch or kick gives you greater snap, strength, and speed. The same goes for the heart. But intention and purpose must be there for it to happen. It doesn't always happen by itself.

I train with a heart rate monitor no matter what I do in the gym. I watch it constantly to monitor not only how fast my heart rate goes up but how fast it comes down.

As unusual as it may seem, my aim is not to get my heart rate up to a highest number every time for maximum cardio benefit. When your intention is to get it to a certain number, your body usually responds - and responds faster each time with regular training. Thus you train your body to respond to get to a high number - faster. Your body follows your brains commands - its intentions.

I think it's much smarter instead to intend on LOWERING the heart rate every time while INCREASING the workload. I don't always succeed but the point is that I try to increase my speed and resistance, while lowering the heart rate mentally by intending it right from the start instead of setting a goal to get to my "maximum heart rate" as quick a I can and to keep it there.

I want increased capacity of strength and lowered stress on the heart while at the same time benefit from greater output by it at the same time.

So, when I run on a treadmill, my intention is to get a HIGHER speed on the treadmill and a LOWER heart rate each time for each short burst. When I lift weights, I watch my heart rate for heavy lifts and see if each time I can do my and lower my heart rate.

Then after each set, it's my intention to get that heart rate down as quickly as possible. Practicing elasticity has to be practiced - it doesn't come without intention - few things do.

Watching the heart rate with bodyweight exercises, weights, kettlebells, martial arts is all the same. The quest to build great health, energy, strength, and stamina to me lies in asking this question... "How can I increase my weight and reps while lowering my heart rate? AND, how fast between each set can I get my heart rate back down?"

By asking intelligent questions like this, you get your own answers and insight to whether you're overtraining, whether you're pushing yourself too hard, and whether you might want to drop things down a notch or jump them up. The numbers won't lie. Your heart will tell you in more ways than one.

To Your Strength and Mastery,
Garin Bader
P.S. CoreForce Energy strength teaches you new ways to develop elastic strength mentally and physically while teaching you to think that strength is an expression of energy - not just rehearsed muscular contractions. It emphasizes the importance of creating and utilizing the synergy of mind, body, and spirit to allow you to Achieve Your Power Zenith intelligently and without any harmful drugs whatsoever.