Physiological

changes During
Aerobic Exercise
-By Anand Vaghasiya (Final Year BPT)
• Exercise induces more activity in the whole
body almost every system of the body
affected by exercise.
• Incresing muscular activity demands the
more Oxygen and red blood cell supply to
the muscular tissue.
  By increasing Heart rate
 By increasing blood pressure
This Can be  By increasing Cardia output
Done with the  By increasing venous return
help of other  By reducing blood flow to the inactive muscles and non-vital
organs
Body Systems.  Redistribution of Blood supply from non-vitals to vitals.
  Changes in Cardio-Vascular System
 Changes in Respiration
Topics to be
covered  Changes in Blood System
 Endocrine functions
 • During physical activity several changes take place to increase blood flow to active
muscle. Greater blood flow to muscles increases delivery of things needed for
metabolism to occur (oxygen, glucose, triglyceride) and expedites the removal of
products generated during metabolism (carbon dioxide).

Changes in
Cardio-
 Effects on heart : becomes enlarged. It is not disease, its just physiological change.
Vascular
System  Effects on heart rate: due to cerebral activation, athletes may have
decreased HR.
 Effect on cardiac output: increases up to 30liter per minute.
 Effect on venous return: increases.
 Effects on blood pressure: increases, due to vasoconstriction and
increased HR.
 Effects on circulation: increases.
Oxygen Delivery to Tissue
Oxygen delivery to tissue depends on two major factors:
• the amount of oxygen tissue takes out of a given amount of
blood, and
• the amount of blood flowing through the tissue.

Arterial venous oxygen difference (a-v O2 difference )

• It is the difference between the amount of oxygen in 100 mL

of arterial blood entering a tissue and the amount of oxygen
in 100 mL of venous blood leaving a tissue.
• During exercise, more oxygen is taken out of the blood by
metabolically active muscle, which increases the a-v O2 diff
Oxygen delivery or oxygen consumption ( VO2 )

Oxygen Delivery = Blood Flow × a-v O2 diff

• Oxygen delivery or oxygen consumption ( O2 ) is a product of

blood flow multiplied by a-v O2 diff.
• This calculation is termed the Fick equation. To determine
oxygen consumption for the entire body using the Fick
equation, cardiac output ( ) represents blood flow.
 • The Fick principle

• “Oxygen Delivery = Blood Flow × a-v O2 difference for

the entire body or for a specifi c tissue or organ.

• In the case of oxygen consumption for the entire body,

the Fick principle results in the following equation:

VO2 = Q × a-v O2 diff

  As exercise intensity increases, blood flow is diverted from tissues
that can temporarily tolerate a decrease in flow, such as the
kidneys, visceral organs, and splanchnic tissues, and is instead
directed toward active skeletal muscle
Redistribution  During light and moderate exercise, blood flow to the skin
of Blood Flow increases to help moderate an elevation in body temperature but
During during maximal exercise, skin blood flow decreases, resulting in a
redirection of blood flow to active muscle.
Exercise  During exercise, the heart, similar to skeletal muscle, performs
more work than at rest and, therefore, requires more oxygen.
Thus, myocardial blood flow increases approximately four to five
times above rest during maximal exercise.
 Intrinsic
Control

a n d V a s od ia lation
ion
Vasoconstrict

Extrinsic
Control
  Adrenergic sympathetic neural stimulation is the basis
of extrinsic control of vasoconstriction and
vasodilation. Sympathetic nerves release
norepinephrine and epinephrine.
Extrinsic Control  Norepinephrine is the primary neurotransmitter
of released by sympathetic nerves innervating peripheral
Vasoconstriction blood vessels, and affects primarily receptors (alpha
receptors), causing vasoconstriction.
and Vasodilation  On the other hand, epinephrine affects receptors,
causing both vasoconstriction and vasodilation (beta 2
receptors). Thus, the amount of vasoconstriction and
vasodilation depends on a balance of these two stimuli.
Intrinsic Control  Changes within skeletal muscle during exercise
of stimulate muscle chemoreceptors, resulting in an
increase in vasodilation because of a reflex change in
Vasoconstriction neural sympathetic stimulation.
and Vasodilation  This intrinsic control of vasoconstriction and
vasodilation is termed autoregulation.
Another is  during exercise, in order to help increase stroke volume
and cardiac output and, thus, blood flow to tissue.
Increasing These factors are venoconstriction, the muscle pump,
Venous Return and the respiratory pump.
  The muscle pump is a mechanism through which rhythmic muscle
contractions aid the venous return of blood to the heart. Large
veins contain one-way valves that allow blood fl ow only toward
the heart

Muscle Pump
  At rest, venous vessels contain approximately 65% of
the body’s total blood volume. So, venous vessels can
be viewed as storage reservoirs or capacitance blood
vessels that contain a high volume of blood at a
relatively low pressure.
 sympathetic stimulation causing venoconstriction, or
Venoconstriction constriction of veins, which would increase venous
return to the heart.
 However, the veins of skeletal muscle may not receive
suffi cient sympathetic stimulation to substantially
increase venous return. Thus, only the veins located in
tissues other than skeletal muscle may contribute to an
increase in venous return
 During exercise, capillary gas exchange at the alveoli and muscle tissue
increases to meet the greater needs for oxygen delivery and carbon
dioxide removal. To increase capillary gas exchange, pulmonary ventilation
increases
Changes in
Respiration
System
  The oxygen demand during exercise increses the
respiratory rate.
 There are factors which can cause this:
1. Incresed metabolic waste and carbon dioxide gas at
tissue level, which concentrates on both cell level and
vessel level.
Effect on 2. Proprioceptive activation at joint level. Which
indicates body to work more to achive the demand.
Respiratory
3. Reflex effect by respiratory center at brain level.
rate
4. Adrenaline secretion. Which is indicative as do or die.
Body itself increses activity under the effect of
adrenaline.
5. Incresed temperature due to exercise,
autoregulation effects respiration to maintain
temperature of body by increasing blood flow and
sweating.
 Thank you !

Refference book: Exercise Physiology- Integrating Theory and Application

( William J. Kraemer, Steven J. Fleck, Michael R. Deschenes)