A sweaty session in the gym works more than just your muscles. Regular exercise also strengthens your bones, keeps your tendons and ligaments flexible, improves your circulation and increases the efficiency of the heart. To ensure your safety and health, speak with your physician about your ideal pulse rate and blood pressure during exercise. Although the ideal range varies from one person to the next, you can expect to see changes in your pulse rate, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure during exercise.
Exercise and the Body
As you begin exercising, endorphins and adrenaline are released inside your body. These chemicals stimulate the heart, which increases the heart rate. As the heart rate increases, the cardiac output, or the amount of blood pumped out of the heart with each beat, also increases. Because more blood is pumped out of the heart, more blood rushes through the body. Through dilation and constriction, the arteries ensure that blood is directed to areas that need it most, including the muscles and lungs. As you continue to exercise, higher amounts of lactic acid and carbon dioxide are produced within the body. As a result, the heart rate increases even further. Because carbon dioxide is produced more quickly, the body's respiration rate also increases to eliminate the excess carbon dioxide and replace it with oxygen.
Immediate Effects --- Pulse Rate
Whether referred to as "pulse rate" or "heart rate," the count almost always increases during exercise. Because the blood is pumping faster during exercise to deliver sufficient blood through the body, the number of times it beats per minute increases. If your heart rate doesn't increase during exercise, you probably are not working hard enough.
Immediate Effects --- Blood Pressure
When it comes to blood pressure, you need to consider both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Your systolic pressure refers to the amount of pressure in the arteries during the heart's contraction, while the diastolic pressure is the amount of pressure in the arteries during the heart's relaxation. Because a larger amount of blood is being pumped through the arteries with each contraction, the systolic blood pressure should increase during exercise. However, the diastolic blood pressure should decrease slightly, because the arteries are dilated during exercise and blood meets less resistance when flowing through.
Long-term Effects
As with any other muscle in the body, the heart muscle becomes stronger through exercise. As the heart becomes stronger, it also becomes more efficient and is able to pump more blood with each beat. As a result, the heart does not need to pump as often to deliver adequate blood through the body and the pulse rate decreases. And because your heart exerts less effort with each pump, the pressure it places on your arteries also decreases, lowering blood pressure. Regular exercise also helps to keep blood vessel walls elastic and resilient. As a result, blood is able to move smoothly through the arteries with little resistance, further decreasing blood pressure.
References
- University of New Mexico; Exercise and Resting Blood Pressure; Len Kravitz, Ph.D.
- American Heart Association: Target Heart Rates
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Exercise --- Exercise's Effects on the Heart
- Teach PE: Short-term Effects of Exercise
- MayoClinic.com; Exercise: A Drug-free Approach to Lowering High Blood Pressure; August 2010
- "The New York Times"; Exercise's Effects on the Heart; March 2009
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