Benefits of Cardiovascular Fitness

1. Benefits of Cardiovascular Fitness SkyView Physical Education Department

2. What are some Aerobic Activities?

3. What is Aerobic Conditioning? • One’s ability to take in, deliver and use oxygen • Improvement occurs when your body is exposed to a prolonged increase in oxygen uptake • Important to work at a high level to stimulate body • Workouts must be made increasingly harder to force further improvement • Progression and Overload is key

4. Cardiovascular Effects • Increase’s the diameter of blood vessels • Allows blood to move through blood vessels more easily • Decreases blood pressure during rest • Decreases chances for blood clots to completely block blood flow

5. Increases in Cardiovascular Output • Increases amount of blood output from the heart with each beat • More oxygen and nutrients into cells throughout body • Increase in blood flow to muscles • Up to 88% of blood flows to muscles during high intensity aerobic activity • Increases strength of contraction of heart muscle • Heart doesn’t have to work as hard to do the same amount of work

6. Resting Heart Rate • Decreases resting heart rate as much as 10 beats per minute (bpm) • If you decrease your heart rate by 10 bpm, your heart beats 5,226,00 fewer beats during one year • Adds up to 262,800,000 beats saved the next 50 years

7. Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) • You can use your heart rate as a guide to the intensity of your effort • Each person has a specific MHR that can be reached through a certain amount of effort • Factors such as genetics, age, and to a certain extent, conditioning can effect this • Difficult to measure without sophisticated equipment but can be estimated

8. What’s your Max Heart Rate • Using this formula you can estimate what your max heart rate is Maximum Heart Rate = 220 – Your Age

9. Max Heart Rate cont. • In order to stimulate an aerobic conditioning effect, you must keep your heart rate at 70 to 85% of MHR • This must be sustained for 20to 30 minutes at a time • The harder you work, the greater the results will be

10. Heart Output • Cardiovascular conditioning increases cardiac output but decreases heart rate • Heart doesn’t work as hard to do same amount of work at all levels of intensity • Increases the size of the chambers of the heart • This means your heart is stronger • Increase stroke volume which is characterized by by decrease in the heart rate and an increase in strength of heart contraction • Heart doesn’t work as hard to do the same amount of work

11. Abnormal Heartbeats • Decreases the vulnerability of dysrhythmias (abnormal heart beats) • Aids in a stable electrical conduction in the heart • Able to beat more normally

12. Effect on Blood • Decreases in peripheral resistance of veins/arteries • Raises the number of red blood cells • This provides more oxygen carrying capacity to the cells • Red blood cells deliver the oxygen through the blood from the lungs to all the cells • Lowers blood pressure • Decreases resting systolic, diastolic, and mean blood pressure • Decrease in both mean and diastolic pressure during maximum workouts

13. Your Capillaries • Increases capillarization which increases the surface area within capillaries • Improves transportation of nutrients and oxygen to pass out of the blood into cells • More efficient capillaries and surface area means more places for nutrients to pass out of the blood into cells

14. Effects on Blood cont. • Help’s blood vessels retain flexibility • Tends to keep BP (blood pressure low) • Enhances clotting and anti-clotting mechanisms • Exercising allows blood to clots faster, and almost contradictory, blood also un-clots faster • Result is reduced risk of Atherosclerosis (also called hardening of the arteries, occurs when fat, cholesterol, and other substances build up in the walls of arteries) • Increases plasminogen which aids in dissolving blood clots

15. Blood cont. • Increases blood hemoglobin which aids in Oxygen transportation to muscles and Carbon Dioxide to lungs • More efficient use of inhaled air, you can do more with your oxygen without getting tired

16. Blood cont. • Increase efficiency in blood coagulation • Injuries and cuts will heal sooner • Increase in total blood volume (up to 25%) • More blood means more oxygen carried to cells, organs and muscles • Reduces risk of hypertension (high blood pressure) • Increases the amount of blood that goes to the brain • Exercisers have reported being more alert and engaged in studies compared to non-exercisers

17. Effects on Strength • Cardiovascular fitness increases respiratory strength and muscle endurance • Helps asthmatics • Increase in capillary density near skeletal/cardiac muscles • More capillaries means more mitochondria (powerhouse cell) delivered to muscles • Allows oxygen to be absorbed into muscle cells • Transport of nutrients to tissue • Permits greater levels of aerobic workout

18. Heart Disease? • Being in good cardiovascular shape helps to prevent and survive heart attacks • The more you exercise and take care of yourself, the more efficient and easier your blood flows, allowing your heart to not work as hard This may save your life some day!