Background research
THE CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM
The heart is a muscle that never stops. It pumps the blood through your body. It pumps not only blood but also oxygen and nutrients that you need. Also it can adapt its rhythm to ensure your muscles get the amount of oxygen they need. The slowest pulse for a human is 30 beats per minute, and the highest is 230 beats per minute. If you have one of these heart rates it means you are either dying or have just done some exceptionally strenuous exercise!
The blood consists of four elements: red blood cells, which transport oxygen to your body and bring back carbon dioxide, white bloods cells, which are used for killing germs and to pick up any dead blood cells, platelets which repair wounds, and plasma, that is ¾ water and transports waste products.
The cardiovascular system (the name for the heart and all the blood vessels) consists of veins that bring blood to the heart, arteries that transport the blood to your muscles, and capillaries that distribute the blood to your cells.
Did you know that if you put all the veins, arteries and capillaries of one person in a straight line one after the other, it would cover over 60,000 miles! Also the heart of an adult is about the size of two fists and the heart of a child is approximately the size of one fist. Another fact: an adult’s heart beats roughly 70 times a minute if they are not doing exercise.
HEART DISEASE
There are five major heart diseases.
Angina is caused by narrowed coronary blood vessels resulting in insufficient oxygen reaching that part of the heart supplied by the vessel. It is felt as short yet intense pains.
Coronary thrombosis is when a blood clot forms in the vessels bringing blood to the heart and prevents enough blood and oxygen reaching the heart.
Myocardial infarctus is when part of the heart muscle dies because it does not get enough oxygen. This can happen following angina or coronary thrombosis.
Hypertension is caused by loss of elasticity of the arteries, stress, fatigue and anxiety. Consequences can include rupture of the arteries, bleeding and heart stress.
Finally, there is rheumatic fever which destroys the valves in the heart, and therefore causes the heart to not function well.
RISK FACTORS FOR HEART DISEASE
The biggest risk factors are not doing enough exercise, not paying attention to your diet, and smoking.
If you do not exercise enough, your heart will weaken and pump less blood per beat, there will be less elasticity in your arteries, and the blood will circulate less well. To get enough oxygen, you heart will have to beat faster, which results in your heart being very tired.
Poor diet with too much fat and hydrogenated oils and too few fruits and vegetables is associated with high cholesterol levels and high blood pressure.
Smoking also raises your blood pressure and fatigues your heart. It multiplies the consequences of bad eating habits by 5 times, it augments the tension in your arteries, your blood becomes heavier and it reduces the oxygen that your blood can carry in one beat by 10%.
There are other risk factors like: if someone in your family has had heart disease, or if you are under too much stress.
IMPROVING HEART HEALTH
There are three major things you can do to improve the health of your heart.
The first is doing exercise because it reduces obesity. The best exercise you can do to reduce obesity is a sport that uses lots of muscles, that goes slowly enough so that you can talk at the same time, but it has to last quite long, at least half an hour.
Another major thing that you can do is reducing your cholesterol, so you have less chance of a heart attack and you do not want to fatigue your heart.
And the last, but definitely not the least: DO NOT SMOKE! There are an infinite number of reasons to not smoke, including it doubles the risk of having a heart attack, it encourages your arteries to clog faster and it augments the rhythm of the heart, therefore resulting in the fatigue of the heart.
CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM OF ATHLETES
It’s surprising but the heart of an elite athlete is not different in its structure or size. However, it beats a lot slower. This means it has more time to fill up with blood and more blood flows through the body with every beat. Trained muscles have a lot more capillaries which means more blood can reach them and because there is more oxygen and food delivered in each beat, the muscles can do a lot more work at the same heart rate than those of a non-athlete.
THE HEART RATE MONITOR
The heart rate monitor consists of 2 parts: a sport watch and a heart rate monitor. The heart rate monitor detects the electrical signals that your heart projects at each beat. It then transmits these signals to the sport watch which calculates the pulse.
You can use a heart rate monitor to help you in sports or just to stay healthy. First you need to measure your maximum pulse. Run slowly for about 15 minutes to warm up your muscles, then run up a steep hill for 2 minutes and measure your heart rate. Have a small break by running slowly for 5 minutes. The run up the hill a second time for 2 minutes and measure your heart rate. Now you take the highest heart rate reading. This is your maximum pulse.
To keep yourself in good health it is best to be in zone 1 (60-70% of maximum heart rate). If you want to train your body to tolerate lactic acid it is best to be in zone 3 (80-90% of maximum heart rate). If you want to improve your maximum oxygen uptake and use it is best to train in zone 5 (90-100% of maximum heart rate).
