Understanding Increased Blood Flow During Exercise
3 min readEngaging in physical exercises, whether you are jogging, running on the treadmill, or playing an engaging sport, causes a lot of physiological changes to your body.
Those changes are temporary, while some are permanent, and they help redirect body resources to the organs where they are needed and when they are needed. One of those changes is blood flow.
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Why Is Blood Flow Important During Exercise?
When exercising, you push your muscles to work longer and/or harder than they usually do, which means that they need more oxygen supply. Without enough oxygen, your muscles would fail after a short time of exercising.
Blood is one way the muscles receive the needed oxygen levels, which is why it increases after you start your exercises. Respiration is the other way in which oxygen levels increase during workouts.
The oxygen molecules you get when you breathe attach themselves to the hemoglobin in your blood, which then carries them to the muscles. When they reach the muscles, the oxygen molecules leave the hemoglobin onto the muscles.
Also, the carbon dioxide molecules in the muscles attach themselves to the hemoglobin, which carries them to the lungs, where you release them via exhalation.
How Exercise Works
During a workout, your muscles use up ATP (Adenosine triphosphate), which then releases waste like carbon dioxide, hydrogen ions, and adenosine.
As the blood takes them from your muscles, it causes your capillaries to expand. That vasodilation results in increased blood flow to and from the muscles, which delivers the required amounts of oxygen to your muscles.
Your heart also pumps faster during workouts, and that might increase your blood flow by around 4-5 times the normal rate. That also helps increase the amount of oxygenated blood that reaches your muscles.
Redirection Of Blood Flow
Your body is like a machine, and there is normally redirection of resources to organs that need them more. Blood flow is one of those resources.
When you start working out, the body reroutes blood flow from some non-essential organs like the stomach, intestines, and kidneys to your muscles.
When you start exercising, a part of your autonomic nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system stimulates the nerves to your blood vessels and the heart. That stimulation causes your veins and arteries to contract (vasoconstriction), which reduces blood flow to tissues and organs.
The blood vessels in your muscles also get the stimulation for contraction, but the ATP byproducts override that command, causing vasodilation.
Since the blood vessels to other organs contract but those in your muscles expand, blood flow increases in the muscles and reduces in the rest of the organs and tissues.
What Are Long Term Effects Of Exercise On Blood Flow?
Exercises are among the things that have long-term and permanent benefits to the body, even after your heart rate reduces. One of those benefits is a stronger heart, which happens due to your heart pumping hard to supply the needed blood flow.
Exercising regularly also helps slow down your resting heartbeat, which increases the efficiency of your heart. That is because it enables your heart to pump more blood with less effort.
According to Legion Athletics, you need to take an energy booster before a workout to maintain your energy levels. They recommend caffeine free pre workout energy boosters that have no starch.