Cardiovascular Fitness : How Does It Affect Your Everyday Life?

Introduction: In this experiment, cardiovascular fitness is being determined by measuring how long it takes for the test subjects' to return to their resting heart rate. Cardiovascular fitness is the ability to "transport and use oxygen while exercising" (Dale 2015). Cardiovascular fitness utilizes the "heart, lungs, muscles, and blood working together" while exercising (Dale 2015). It is also how well your body can last during moderate to high intensity cardio for long periods of time (Waehner 2016). The hypothesis is that people who exercise for three or more days will return to their resting heart rate much faster than people who only exercise for less than three days.

Heart Rate: Where the heart becomes enlarged when undergoing any form of exercise the blood can be circulated round the body more efficiently. This results in a reduction in the heart rate at a given level of exercise as the heart is able to pump more blood with each beat. At the onset of exercise the

About.com., 2013. Sports Medicine. [online] Endurance Training for Sports - What is Cardiovascular and Aerobic Fitness? Available at: [Assessed 15 May 2013].

These components include aerobic power, which can be typically described as VO2 max, this is the maximal amount of oxygen the body can take in and use efficiently. The amount of oxygen taken in can be influenced greatly by the cardiovascular systems ability to deliver oxygenated blood to exercising muscles, the lungs ability to oxygenate the blood and the muscles ability to use the oxygen and extract it for sustained contractions. Disease and inactivity therefore can impair or inhibit these factors consequently reducing a persons ability to function.

Exercise is another key to maintain a healthy heart and cardiovascular system. The American Heart Association recommends 150-minutes of moderate-intensity, aerobic, physical activity, or 75-minutes of vigorous-intensity, aerobic, physical activity. To stave off boredom, it’s suggested to do a combination of both types of exercise throughout the week (American Heart Association, 2017). Aerobic physical activity is described as, “Exercise with oxygen.” During this type of exercise, the body, more specifically the heart, is working hard to pump oxygenated blood from the heart to the muscles throughout your body (another name for this type of exercise is cardio-exercise). Specific examples of aerobic exercise are; cardio machines, walking, jogging, running, swimming, hiking, and even dancing. The intensity of the exercise depends on how fast and how long the exercise is consistently maintained over a period of time (Weil, n.d.).

The five basic components of fitness are cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Cardiorespiratory endurance measures how efficiently the heart, lungs, and blood vessels are able to supply oxygen, energy, and nutrients to muscles particularly during prolonged exercise. An example could be swimming or running and it can improve heart health. Muscular strength is measured by how much a muscle can “handle”. The most force a muscle or group of muscles can handle, this aspect is used during weight training or other forms of resistance exercise. It is important because it improves muscle health and durability. The

Cardiovascular exercise includes workouts and movements that are particularly brought about to increase your heart rate and blood circulation throughout the entire body.This includes activities such as swimming, biking, cycling, walking and, of course, running. When you are training cardio, you are improving your heart, a muscle, and its ability to effectively pump blood throughout your body.Ideally, a healthy heart is one that beats regularly

The heart becomes stronger as a result of exercise so it can pump blood through the body with every beat and continue working at an easy level. It might be surprising but our heart isn’t really on

The heart is an extraordinary structure that is the base of all human life. However, it similar to the uncomplicated functions of water pumps. As the heart beats, blood is distributed throughout the body using a network of blood vessels. The functions of the heart can be kept in regular and healthy conditions through exercise. Exercise has an effect on the blood that is circulating through the body. That circulating blood makes the heart desire more oxygen, causing the heart rate to increase rapidly to keep up with activity demand.

Whist moving and exercising the body desperately needs a lot of oxygenits the hearts job to push all of these rich oxiginated red blood cells around the body but the more vigorous the exercise then the more oxygen needed so the heart has to pump harder and faster other wise oxygen wont be put into the places where its really needed leding to a build up of lactic acid causing the muscles to fatigue if the heart is required to do this often then it will grow stronger and will be able to cope with the intensity. At the start of exercise, the nerves in the brain detect cardiovascular activity. these nerves can then make the heart rate increase by sending out chemical messages, as well as the strength at which the heart

The results of this test show that it provides a valid test to estimate aerobic capacity and shows there is a small measurement of error. A polar heart rate monitor was used to measure the heart rate with a step of 30cm in height with a metronome with a beat at 15 steps, per minute and increased by 5 steps every minute for 5 stages or until 80% of the maximum estimated heart rate was reached. The results demonstrated that the Chester Step technique is a valid predictor of aerobic capacity in males and females from a wide range of ages and fitness levels.

Good physical health is a vital part of the well-being of every person. A major component of our physical health is “Cardiovascular fitness”. Cardiovascular fitness is the ability of the heart and lungs to provide oxygen to the muscles for activity of an extended duration. If we have a good level of cardio-vascular fitness we are able to sustain activity for a reasonable period of time and not fatigue easily. This can give individuals a variety of health benefits and allow more regular and enjoyable activity to be participated in. This research report will examine my results of cardio-vascular fitness tests and weekly physical activity events, which

The literature on the effects of exercise of cardiac output maintains the idea that exercise should affect cardiac output- pulse rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, QRS-pulse lag, P-T and T-P intervals, because of increased heart rate. For our experiment, we tested this theory by measuring our cardiac output before and after some rigorous exercise. We measured the individual cardiac output and then combined the data to compose a class-wide data average. We compared the results of the experiment to what we expected, which was that exercise does affect our heart. Our data from this experiment supported the notion that exercise does, in fact, change cardiac output.

According to Merriam Webster, fitness is defined as “the quality or state of being fit” (n.d. 2016). This obviously has a bit of room for interpretation. What is “fit”, anyway? Everyone measures fitness differently. Some would consider themselves fit if they don’t get winded after running up a flight of stairs, others measure it by a certain amount of weight they can lift or miles they can run, some measure it by using percentages and ratios like Body Mass Index or BMI, and others

The muscles demand more energy and oxygen due to the increased workload that comes from exercise. This causes the heart rate and respiratory rate to increase in order to provide the required additional fuel to the muscles. In addition, the entire circulatory system works more efficiently due to vascular dilation and cholesterol reduction. By improving the condition of your cardiovascular fitness you are also helping yourself live longer, decrease the risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure, strengthen your cardiovascular system, and the list goes on. These reasons alone could save you from having heart disease.