Good Learning Co.
SavannahYear 8
← PE
PESports science: how the body performs22 min★★ difficulty

Heart, lungs and the oxygen delivery system

Sustained exercise is a supply problem: how much oxygen can you move from the air to a working muscle every minute, and how fast can you clear the waste?

Part of your national curriculum
  • Health and fitness: Develop components of fitness through sustained physical activity, understanding the effects of exercise on the body

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Develop components of fitness through sustained physical activity, understanding the effects of exercise on the body

Key learning points

  • • Cardiac output = heart rate x stroke volume
  • • Breathing and gas exchange
  • • Short-term effects you can measure
  • • Long-term adaptations

This lesson at a glance

  • 22 minutes
  • 15 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

componentsfitnesssustainedphysicalactivity

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 15 · Discover7%
1

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Part 1 of 15

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Heart, lungs and the oxygen delivery system

Ride along with a red blood cell as your heart pumps it round your body.

In a nutshell

Develop components of fitness through sustained physical activity, understanding the effects of exercise on the body

2

Learning cycle

Part 2 of 15

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 · Cardiac output = heart rate x stroke volume

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

3

Explore the idea

Part 3 of 15

Learn

Cardiac output = heart rate x stroke volume

Stroke volume is the blood pumped out of the left ventricle each beat; heart rate is beats per minute. Multiply them and you get cardiac output, the litres of blood per minute reaching the muscles. At rest a learner might have a stroke volume of 70ml and a heart rate of 70bpm, so cardiac output is about 4.9 litres per minute. In hard exercise both rise, and cardiac output can more than quadruple.

4

Explore the idea

Part 4 of 15

Learn

Breathing and gas exchange

Air travels trachea, bronchi, bronchioles, alveoli. At the alveoli, oxygen diffuses into the blood and carbon dioxide diffuses out, driven by concentration gradients. Exercise raises both breathing rate and tidal volume (the air moved per breath), so minute ventilation climbs sharply. Rising carbon dioxide in the blood — not falling oxygen — is the main signal that makes you breathe harder.

5

Quick check

Part 5 of 15

Quick check

A performer has a stroke volume of 80ml and a heart rate of 150bpm. What is their cardiac output?

6

Quick check

Part 6 of 15

Quick check

Where does gas exchange take place in the lungs?

7

Reset break

Part 7 of 15

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
8

Learning cycle

Part 8 of 15

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 · Short-term effects you can measure

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

9

Explore the idea

Part 9 of 15

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Short-term effects you can measure

Within seconds: heart rate rises, breathing deepens, blood is redistributed towards working muscle (vascular shunting) and away from the digestive system. Within minutes: body temperature rises, sweating starts, skin reddens as vessels near the surface widen to lose heat. These are normal responses, not warning signs — the warning signs are dizziness, chest pain or a heart rate that will not settle in recovery.

10

Explore the idea

Part 10 of 15

Learn

Long-term adaptations

Months of endurance training produce cardiac hypertrophy: a stronger left ventricle with a larger stroke volume. Because each beat delivers more blood, resting heart rate falls — bradycardia. Capillary networks around muscles and alveoli grow, so gas exchange improves, and recovery heart rate drops faster after effort. Recovery rate is one of the clearest signs that a training programme is working.

11

Quick check

Part 11 of 15

Quick check

Which change is a long-term adaptation rather than a short-term response?

12

Quick check

Part 12 of 15

Quick check

Vascular shunting during exercise means blood is directed:

13

Challenge round

Part 13 of 15

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

14

Mastery quiz

Part 14 of 15

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Heart, lungs and the oxygen delivery system

4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. Which activity best develops cardiovascular endurance?

  2. 2. A performer has a stroke volume of 80ml and a heart rate of 150bpm. What is their cardiac output?

  3. 3. Where does gas exchange take place in the lungs?

  4. 4. Which change is a long-term adaptation rather than a short-term response?

15

Lesson round-up

Part 15 of 15

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Article

What a warm-up is actually for

A warm-up raises the heart rate, sends more blood to the working muscles and raises muscle temperature by a couple of degrees. Warm muscle stretches further before it tears, and messages between brain and muscle travel faster, so movement is more accurate.

A good warm-up has three parts: a few minutes of easy movement, mobility that takes joints through the range the sport needs, and short bursts at close to game speed.

Long, still stretching before explosive sport can slow the muscle down. Save that kind of stretching for the cool-down.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. Explain in your own words two things a warm-up does to the body.
  2. Design a ten-minute warm-up for one sport, with times for each part.
  3. Keep a training log for three sessions: what you did, how long, and how you felt after.

  • Training log

    Writing

    Write what you did, for how long, and how your body felt afterwards.

    Half a page

Saved as you type.

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    Develop components of fitness through sustained physical activity, understanding the effects of exercise on the body

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