Heart and Heart Rate

Heart Rate and Exercise

Facts about the Heart

• It's approximately the size of your fist

• It weighs less than a pound (lb) (less than a block of butter!)

• It has four hollow chambers (2 atriums and 2 ventricles) that the blood circulates through and pumps out to the rest of your body!

• It's a continuous cycle of pumping blood to and from the heart from the body and pumps about 6000 quarts of blood in a day! (That's over 1,500 gallons)

Finding and measuring your pulse(heart rate)

• You can feel your pulse 2 ways

• You can find it in your neck (carotid artery)

• You can also find it in your wrist (radial artery)

• Normal heart rates fall between 60-80 beats per minute depending on a lot of factors (age, weight, fitness level, etc)

Why is knowing your heart rate important?

• So you know the intensity of your physical activity and that it's benefitting you

• It lets you know how hard your body is working

What can happen overtime to heart rate with exercise

• The more you exercise, the more you strengthen your heart so it can pump more blood and it needs fewer beats. (Basically, your heart can relax and not work so hard)

• The more you exercise=the slower your resting heart rate becomes

• Exercise also makes more blood vessels, which means more places for blood to flow and makes circulation more efficient.

What else could influence your heart rate besides activity?

• Age

• gender

• body temperature

• Physical or emotional stress

• How often you exercise

• Caffeine

• Nervousness