Question

1. Now that you see what happens with oxygen consumption, cardiac output, and stroke volume, create your own scenario where two subjects would have different numbers (for example so don’t use this one – someone with COPD vs. healthy person). Explain what you expect your findings to be and why.

Answer 1

We can see difference in oxygen consumption among people with different diseases and other symptoms. We can see such a difference among an athlete and a common man. In athletes the oxygen consumption is higher than a common man. He works regularly and train his muscles so that his locomotor muscles consume a lot of oxygen than normal man and thus the oxygen consumption will increase. vO2 max of normal man is 35-40 mL/kg/min and that of athlete is 60-85mL/kg/min.

The resting cardiac output of a normal and athlete looks similar. In some athletes it is seen around 6L. But the normal range is 4.5-5L . But at a workout situation it increases upto 36L in an athlete. As his myocardium is also getting trained it contracts so fast to pump more blood.

The resting stroke volume of an athlete is greater than a normal person. It's because the normal heart rate of an athlete is less. As the myocardium is getting efficient to pump more blood the heart rate decreases.