If you find yourself huffing and puffing after scaling a flight of stairs, and navigating the airport to catch a flight leaves you gasping for breath, you are experiencing the impact of activity on your respiratory rate. For many, shortness of breath provides a handy excuse to avoid exertion. But in reality, vigorous exercise is the quickest route to improved respiratory function.
Respiratory Function
The respiratory system includes the lungs and the airways leading in and out of them. When the lungs are diseased, the respiratory system is compromised, but healthy lungs alone will not prevent shortness of breath. According to Eastern Kentucky University's Department of Physiology, the function of the lungs is to provide oxygen for use by the cells and to eliminate carbon dioxide that is a product of cellular metabolism. In order to accomplish that task, healthy lungs need the support of a healthy oxygen delivery system.
Respiratory Response to Exercise
When you exercise, the demand for oxygen in the muscle cells for the manufacture of ATP increases significantly, sending a message to the brain to step up oxygen delivery. Very quickly, breathing becomes deeper and faster as the heart begins to pump faster and harder to deliver oxygen-saturated red blood cells to the working muscles. Oxygenated blood travels through the arteries to reach the cells to which capillaries provide access and where oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide, the metabolic "exhaust" of cellular respiration. The veins carry CO2 to the lungs, where it is exchanged for oxygen In the alveoli of the bronchi, and the cycle continues.
Systems Influencing Respiration
A weak heart, low blood volume, low hemoglobin levels, obstructed arteries, underdeveloped muscle cells and excess body fat are all products of inactivity that tax the respiratory system. When oxygen supply cannot meet demand, activity cannot continue. Because the heart is a muscle, failure to deliver adequate oxygen to the cardiac cells can result in myocardial infarction, or a heart attack, where the cells of the heart muscle cannot continue to contract. Once the heart stops, oxygen delivery to the brain quickly subsides, leading to death.
Training Adaptations
Engaging in a regular cardiovascular exercise program is the most direct route to healthy cardiorespiratory function. The body's greatest adaptations take place in the first three months of training. Adaptations include increased lung capacity, improved exchange of O2/CO2, increased total blood volume, increased hemoglobin, a stronger, larger heart, improved arterial function, increased capillaries and cellular increases of mitochondria and oxidative enzymes. As the systems that deliver oxygen to the cells grow stronger and more efficient, the lungs do not have to work as hard to provide oxygen during sub-maximal workloads like climbing stairs.
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