The Respiratory System in Response to Exercise

The respiratory system provides oxygen to be transported through the blood to the exercising muscles as well as eliminating carbon dioxide. In addition, the respiratory system helps buffer the metabolic acids as they build up during intense exercise.  
During exercise, acid is produced and body temperature increases as oxygen is removed from hemoglobin into muscle.

During intense exercise, much more lactic acid and carbon dioxide is produced which then is buffered. This buildup of lactic acid and carbon dioxide further stimulates respiration.  

Low to moderate exercise engages the “aerobic” metabolism and continues doing so as oxygen is available. However, as the exercise becomes more intense, the ability of the cardiorespiratory system to provide oxygen becomes less effective and the “anaerobic” metabolic systems are activated to supply the muscles with energy using glucose and lactic acid as fuel sources.

Engaging in physical exercise disrupts homeostasis. The more intense the exercise, the greater the disruption in homeostasis. The brain, the respiratory system, the heart and blood vessels, the muscles all respond profoundly to the intensity of the exercise for the primary purpose of delivering oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles.

The overload principle — the Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands — provides the validation for all exercise training adaptations, that is, if you continually overload a system it will respond and adapt.

But the response is specific; only the system or body part repeatedly stressed will adapt to the continual overload. The more muscle groups involved the more training adaptations will be made. Only those muscles involved will adapt, no others. If the cardiorespiratory system is continually imposed upon, there will be a specific reaction to improve the cardiorespiratory function and so, better adaptation of the system to the next challenge.

The rate of oxygen utilized is represented by VO2. The V indicates the volume of oxygen consumed. The measure of the maximum oxygen consumed is the gold standard for assessing a person’s cardiovascular fitness. It is measured by exercising to exhaustion.

VO2 increases linearly as exercise intensity is increased until a VO2 max is reached. Over time with regular vigorous workouts, VO2max increases because improvements in oxygen delivery, cardiovascular adaptations, and improvements in muscle mitochondrial oxygen utilization have improved.

The “aerobic” exercises — the jogging, distance cycling, are such that the systems are not stressed enough to be demanding a specific response. These “aerobic” exercises do not improve VO2max. To improve VO2max the body has to be engaged enough to shift into anaerobic metabolism, ultimately reaching and sustaining exercise past the Anaerobic Threshold.

Therefore, it is essential to exceed your maximum heart rate to gain the metabolic effects of exercise, and in particular, the cardiorespiratory system, to improve blood pressure, circulation, and increased VO2max.

To do this type of maximum intensity exercise it is far safer and more beneficial to exercise on the Myoride Exercise Machine: engaging the most muscle groups, through their entire range of motion, under moderate resistance, to complete body exhaustion. No other exercise will exert the amount of anaerobic metabolism or improve the cardiorespiratory system as this type of exercise provides.

We know that maximum intensity training is 2½ times as effective in improving cardiorespiratory function as medium intensity training.

Simple measurements such as the careful monitoring of heart rate recovery will provide adequate ways of knowing when to stop exercising before overstressing the cardiorespiratory system.  

Three to six bursts of output of 30-90 second intervals, with enough rest in between to allow enough oxygenation and lactic acid removal, while heart rate recovery is carefully monitored — provides all the benefits of exercise, while giving a clear, objective indicator of when it is time to quit exercising for the day.