What Exactly Happens To Your Heart When You Exercise?

June 15, 2021
5 min read

It's easy to forget that your heart is also a muscle. So, when you’re exercising, just like any other muscle, your heart is getting a workout too. The level of your cardiovascular health has a big impact on your ability to exercise. Poor heart health will mean you cannot exercise to a greater intensity. Great heart health will mean you can push harder in your workouts, allowing you to lose more weight and gain more muscle. It's interesting to know how your heart helps in your endeavor to lose weight and remain healthy. Specifically, in regards to cardiology, what happens to your heart when you’re exercising?

Cardiac increase

At rest, your heart will pump about five liters of blood around your body. Your heart is impressive; it pumps your entire body’s quantity of blood 60 times each hour. That’s nothing compared to what it can do when you call upon it to increase output during a workout. Your heart can pump 20-25 liters of blood every single minute when your heart rate is up in the safe but strenuous range. Additionally, your heart rate can increase from a resting 60-100 to the triple-digit range. If you want to know what your maximum heart rate is, subtract your age from 220. Although this will not usually be reached during a workout, you can expect it to be about 80% of that during a tough workout.

Workout adaptation

When you work out, you sweat to maintain a healthy body temperature. This can cause you to become dehydrated. When you're dehydrated, your blood plasma decreases. Unfortunately, this can cause many nutrients and vitamins to not properly arrive into your muscles. Furthermore, your heart will pump quicker to force nutrients to get to the outer reaches of your limbs, causing you to strain while you exercise. A high heart rate is often linked to dehydration, so to prevent early fatigue, always stay hydrated before, during, and after your workout.

Resting rate

During your workouts, your heart’s walls also get a workout. Specifically, they become slightly thicker and the heart enlarges slightly. This makes it far more efficient during your resting periods. If you are familiar with exercising, you’ll notice that you’re not breathing as hard as you once did when you were a novice during rest periods. This improves your ability to breathe during normal resting rates, such as when you're at your desk working or watching TV on the sofa. Your heart rate will be lower because your heart is more efficient. If your heart has to work less most of the time, it's going to be under less stress, giving you more time to enjoy!We hope you were better able to understand what happens to your heart when you exercise. Cardiology becomes very important as we age; however, the more you learn, the more you can adjust your lifestyle to help your heart. If you would love to know more about your cardiovascular health, feel free to contact us today by calling 281-807-5253.

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