What are the effects of exercise on the circulatory system and respiratory system?

You already know exercise is good for you. You probably think about the way it can boost your fitness, trim your waistline, strengthen you heart and even improve your mood. But did you know that exercise can also help keep your lungs healthy?

How Does Exercise Strengthen the Lungs?

When you are physically active, your heart and lungs work harder to supply the additional oxygen your muscles demand. Just like regular exercise makes your muscles stronger, it also makes your lungs and heart stronger. As your physical fitness improves, your body becomes more efficient at getting oxygen into the bloodstream and transporting it to the working muscles. That's one of the reasons that you are less likely to become short of breath during exercise over time.

Some types of exercise can also strengthen the muscles of the neck and chest, including the diaphragm and muscles between the ribs that work together to power inhaling and exhaling.

The Benefits of Exercise

Exercise has lots of benefits for everyone, whether you are young or old, slender or large, able-bodied or living with a chronic illness or disability. Physical activity can reduce your risk of serious illness, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some forms of cancer, including lung cancer. Being active can help you stay active, by strengthening bones, improving flexibility and agility, reducing weight gain and improving sleep. Regular exercise is good for your head too. It can reduce feelings of anxiety and depression, improve attention and memory, and reduce the risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.

What Types of Exercise and How Much?

National guidelines recommend that all adults get 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five days a week. It doesn't have to be a formal exercise program to be beneficial. Some examples of moderate activity include walking briskly, recreational bicycling, gardening and vigorous housecleaning.  

Both aerobic activities and muscle-strengthening activities can benefit your lungs. Aerobic activities like walking, running or jumping rope give your heart and lungs the kind of workout they need to function efficiently. Muscle-strengthening activities like weight-lifting or Pilates build core strength, improving your posture, and toning your breathing muscles. Breathing exercises in particular can strengthen your diaphragm and train your body to breathe more deeply and more effectively.

Some Things to Keep in Mind

• Always talk to your doctor before you start or modify your exercise routine. This is especially important if you have an underlying health condition.
• Avoid exercising outdoors when pollution levels are high. When the air is bad, walk indoors in a shopping mall or gym or use an exercise machine. Limit the amount of time your child spends playing outdoors if the air quality is unhealthy.

Exercising with Lung Disease

People living with lung disease can and should get regular exercise for all the same reasons as everyone else. Your lungs and heart stay stronger, you are better able to perform the tasks of daily living and you feel better in mind and body. But if you already are dealing shortness of breath, it can be intimidating to think about increasing your physical activity. It is important to work with your healthcare team to make a fitness plan that works for you.

To learn more about staying active with lung disease, check out the links below:

• Pulmonary Rehabilitation
• Physical Activity and COPD
• Physical Activity and Lung Cancer
• Physical Activity and Pulmonary Fibrosis

How Exercise Helps the Heart

Exercise has many positive effects on heart health. A regular exercise routine can help:

• Lower blood pressure
• Lessen risk of developing diabetes
• Maintain healthy body weight
• Reduce inflammation throughout the body

“One of the key benefits of exercise is that it helps to control or modify many of the risk factors for heart disease,” says Dr. Kerry Stewart, director of Clinical and Research Exercise Physiology at Johns Hopkins Bayview. “Smoking is another big factor for heart disease, and if you exercise regularly you’re unlikely to take on a bad habit like smoking, or quit if you already are a smoker.”

Additional benefits of exercise:

• Improves the muscles’ ability to pull oxygen out of the blood, reducing the need for the heart to pump more blood to the muscles
• Reduces stress hormones that can put an extra burden on the heart
• Works like a beta blocker to slow the heart rate and lower blood pressure
• Increases high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or “good” cholesterol and helps control triglycerides

A number of studies have also shown that people who exercise regularly are less likely to suffer a sudden heart attack or other life-threatening cardiac event.

While exercise has benefits in and of itself, the best way to prevent heart disease is to combine exercise with a healthy diet. Exercise alone can help with weight loss over a long period of time. But a short-term approach is to reduce the number of calories you take in through diet, while increasing the calories you use through exercise.

Ideal exercise for the heart

The best exercise has a positive effect on the heart and improves the skeletmuscular system.

The American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine both recommend combining aerobic exercise (jogging, swimming, biking) with resistance training (moderate weightlifting). Together, these two categories of exercise produce the greatest benefit for preventing and managing heart disease.

Exercise and pregnancy

If you’re having a healthy pregnancy, and you exercised regularly before you were pregnant, it’s beneficial to keep up a moderate routine. This regimen can include walking, swimming or bike riding. You’ll continue to receive the same cardiovascular benefits.

If you’re pregnant and everyday exercise has not been part of your life, you should probably stick with a milder exercise. In both instances, it makes sense to seek advice from your physician.

Sources for exercise intelligence

The National Institute of Health, the American Heart Association, and the American College of Sports Medicine are all good sources for assistance in choosing the right exercise routine.

Johns Hopkins has a clinical exercise center which offers medically supervised programs and exercise guidelines based on scientific evidence. We evaluate fitness levels and consider medical history before starting people on exercise regimens. There are similar medical fitness centers throughout the country.

How much exercise and how often?

General guidelines call for a combination of aerobic exercise and resistance training. Try to get in a minimum of 30 minutes of aerobic exercise such as walking, cycling or swimming at least five days a week. Do moderate weightlifting to tone muscles and build muscle endurance twice a week, or frequently enough to cover the major muscle groups.

How do you know when you’re making progress?

There are many ways to chart your exercise progress. Three of the most common are target heart rate for aerobic exercise, number of repetitions for weight training, and fat vs. muscle body composition.

• Target heart rate – The more fit you are, the harder you’ll need to work to reach your target heart rate. For example, in the first month you may need to walk 3 mph to reach a heart rate of 120, while in the second month in order to reach the same heart rate, you need to walk 4 mph or find a steeper hill. Your fitness is improved and your heart is working more efficiently.
• Reps – The more weight you can lift 12-15 times without straining, the stronger and more durable your muscles are. For example, you start out struggling to curl a 15-lb. dumbbell 15 times, and then add three to five pounds when it becomes easy.
• Body composition – Exercise more and your body will change shape: you’ll lose fat, specifically around the waist, and gain muscle. A looser pair of pants or skirt is a distinct sign of progress.

Knowing when you’re overdoing it.

Setting a target heart rate with a qualified trainer or health professional is the simplest way to keep your workout within a healthy range.

• Stay within your target heart rate, and you’re working out at the right level.
• Go above your target heart rate, and you’re probably working too hard.
• Stay below your target, and you’re not working hard enough to gain the most cardiovascular benefit.

An important sign of overwork is fatigue and soreness that stays with you longer than a day or two after you exercise. Any persistent pain could mean you’ve overused or have injured a muscle.

How to stick with an exercise routine

The key to a successful exercise routine is staying interested and motivated. Here are a few ways to keep exercise a lifelong habit:

Set aside a specific amount of time each day for exercise and work it into your schedule. Work out with a friend. Or join a gym and work out in a group. Either scenario creates mutual support and healthy competition to keep things interesting. Keep a simple log to chart your progress. Create your own record or graph on a spreadsheet, or use one of the many programs available on the Internet. If you jog or cycle, use a heart rate meter or speedometer to help you set and reach goals.

Using exercise to tune up your cardiovascular health

“If we compare a person’s initial fitness response to testing, to responses three to six months later, we see progress,” says Dr. Stewart. “The oxygen consumption will be higher. The time on the treadmill will be longer. The heart rate and blood pressure will be lower. It’s like tuning up your engine. Only the engine is your heart and the body’s circulatory system for distributing blood, and it’s working more efficiently.”

Johns Hopkins Women's Cardiovascular Health Center

The Johns Hopkins Women’s Cardiovascular Health Center provides education, comprehensive treatment and diagnostic services to prevent and manage heart disease in women.

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