Cardiovascular Respiratory System During Exercise Physical Education Essay

Cardiovascular Respiratory System During Exercise Physical Education Essay A good understanding of anatomy and physiology is the basis of all medicine. Without knowing how the body works, how it is made up and how it can go wrong, we cannot even begin to design effective treatments and interventions, including surgery or new pharmaceutical drugs. The body has many different systems which help to maintain the body’s normal function. Three of these functions are; the cardiovascular system, respiratory system and the musculoskeletal system. In this assignment I will be looking at how these three systems work both at resting and during exercise. Cardiovascular System Wilmore, J.H; Costill, D.L (2004) states that the cardiovascular system consists of; the heart, which acts as a pump, blood vessels acting as a system of channels and it also consists of blood which acts as a fluid medium. The cardiovascular system has three main functions: Transports oxygen and nutrients to the body’s cells and transports carbon dioxide and waste products from the b ody’s cells. Protects the body from infection and loss of blood. Helps to regulate pH balance of the body, body temperature and the balance of fluid. (Plowman, A. S; Smith, D.L; 2010). Below is a diagram which shows the circulation of the cardiovascular system. http://agingresearch.buffalo.edu/assets/images/chf_circulatory_system.jpg (Image from http://agingresearch.buffalo.edu/†¦/chf_circulatory_system.jpg) As the diagram above shows the heart pumps oxidized blood to the body so the nutrients can be distributed to the cells and remove the waste which is then returned to the heart and then into the lungs to be oxidized again to return to the body. Response to Exercise Exercise uses up a lot of energy, which the cells derive from oxidizing glucose. Both glucose and oxygen have to be delivered by the blood. This means that the heart has to work harder to pump more blood through the body. This means it has to beat faster in order to achieve a higher throughput. The cardiova scular system responds to exercise by increasing the activity level. The adrenal gland increases the production of the hormones adrenaline and nor adrenaline. These have direct effects on the heart. These hormones cause an increase in the heart rate and the force with which the heart contracts each beat. This increases the total amount of blood that is circulated in the body every minute. That increase in blood circulation is required to meet the increased demand for nutrients and oxygen that the muscles and other tissues. There are several types of exercise and they all affect the cardiovascular system in a similar way, an example of some of these are; short term light to sub maximal aerobic, long term moderate to heavy sub maximal aerobic, incremental aerobic, static exercise and resistance exercise. For the purpose of this essay I will be looking at and comparing; short term to sub maximal aerobic exercise and heavy sub maximal aerobic exercise and how they affect the cardiovascu lar system. img010img011 This image shows the graphs of the changes in the cardiovascular system during light exercise (left) and moderate to heavy exercise (right).