Cardiovascular & Respiratory Systems.
The Cardiovascular system is actually two different systems, the cardio system which refers to the heart and the vascular system which refers to the blood. So when talking about the cardiovascular system we are talking about the heart pumping blood around the body.
The Respiratory System is the system in which delivers oxygen from the air to our blood system and then return as waste products back outside into the air.
In order for our bodies to carry out any form of exercise, the cells in our body need oxygen. The cardio and the respiratory systems supply this oxygen to out body. To understand how the Cardio-respiratory system works you need to understand how, first of all, the heart works.
Diagram of the heart.
As you can see the heart is split into four different chambers, the right atria, right ventricle, the left atria, and the left ventricle. Deoxygenated blood enters the right atria through the Vena Cava; it passes through the Traipsed valve into the right ventricle. At this point the muscles in the right ventricle contract pushing the blood up through the pulmonary valve. .
From here it travels up the pulmonary artery to the lungs where it collects oxygen* and returns to the left atrium of the heart via the pulmonary vein. The blood now passes through the bicuspid valve into the left ventricle, here the thicker the muscle of the right ventricle wall contracts pushing the blood through the aortic valve into the aorta. This then carries the oxygenated blood off to all the other areas of the body. Then the carbon dioxide and the other waste products are collected and returned to the heart via the Vena Cava, an so the process starts again. This process is called the cardiac cycle. During exercise you cardiac output will increase as the working muscles require more oxygen so the cardiac cycle becomes faster delivering the oxygen to the muscle quicker, insuring a greater venous return.