Capillaries: The capillaries increase in size allowing blood to travel along them. New capillaries are developed which helps with the extraction of oxygen. The network of capillaries in a muscle increase therefore this increases the supply of blood, oxygen and the nutrients to the working muscle.
Effect on Athlete’s Performance: Deoxygenated blood will be able to become oxygenated quicker and more quickly so the working muscles will be supplied with oxygen quicker.
Arteries: The supply of blood vessels to the heart will increase therefore in turn blood pressure will decrease and the artery walls will become thicker.
Effect on Athlete’s Performance: As the artery walls are thicker they are then able to with stand blood at a higher pressure as it is pumped at a stronger rate.
Increase in haemoglobin: There is an increase in the amount of red blood cells resulting in the volume of oxygen haemoglobin can carry increases.
Effect on Athlete’s Performance: As there is more haemoglobin more oxygen can be transported to the working muscles, resulting in the athlete being able to work for longer without fatigue.
Lung Capacity: The lungs increase in size therefore they can take in a larger amount of oxygen.
Effect on Athlete’s Performance: As the lung capacity is bigger it increases the amount of oxygen the body can intake and increase the amount of carbon dioxide and waste products the body can remove therefore the athlete can work for longer without being affected by fatigue.
Decrease in Resting Heart Rate: The athlete’s heart rate decreases, this is known as bradycardia. This means that the time it takes for the heart to return to its resting rate after exercise is quicker.
Effect on Athlete’s Performance: The athlete will be able to exercise for longer periods of time as you will not reach your maximum heart rate as you normally would. More blood gets pumped per beat meaning more oxygen gets transported around the body.
Faster Venous Return: More blood is able to be pumped back to the heart at a much quicker rate.
Effect on Athlete’s Performance: The body is able to get rid of the carbon dioxide and other waste products quicker therefore reducing the effects of lactic acid that make the athlete feel fatigue.
Cardiovascular Adaptations due to Strength Training
Strength training is usually done through weight or resistance training methods. Strength training means that the athlete will be working the anaerobic system. For an athlete to improve their strength, the athlete must work at a percentage of their maximum. If an athlete did strength training every other day frequently cardiovascular adaptations would begin to occur, these are;
Increases the size of muscles
This occurs because the training strengthens the muscles up as when the body is lifting weights, the muscles break and have slight tears in them because of the explosive power. When the muscles are rested after the strenuous activity they then reform and become much stronger than before. Therefore, the more weights you do more often, the stronger the athlete will become. Also the greater size of the muscle means more muscle fibres. Strength training improves the fast twitch muscle fibres as they become stronger.
Effect on Athlete’s Performance: The athlete would become stronger and faster. The athlete would have a greater supply of energy enabling them to exercise for longer periods of time.
Increase the thickness of the muscle fibre
As the muscle fibres are bigger in size this results in the muscle being able to generate a bigger force as the fibre can make bigger contractions.
Effect on Athlete’s Performance: As the athlete is able to generate bigger force the athlete is going to be stronger therefore the athlete will be able to beat opponents.
Increased ability to store glycogen, ATP and CP.
In storing a greater amount of glycogen, ATP and CP the body’s energy systems will be able to work more efficiently.
Effect on Athlete’s performance: The athlete will be able to generate energy quicker and therefore will be able to work for longer periods of time which result in the athlete’s performance improving as they can work longer without fatigue.
Increase in glycol tic enzymes
An increase in the quantity and activity enzymes that control the anaerobic phase of glycolisis means that reactions which must occur to produce energy can occur much quicker.
Effect on Athlete’s performance: The athlete can work for longer as there are more enzymes to keep the production of energy going.
Increase in Lactate tolerance
An increase in the tolerance for lactic acid means the athlete will not feel the pain which lactic acid can make as early.
Effect on Athlete’s performance: The athlete will be able to work for longer without feeling the effects of lactic acid. As the athlete exercises more their clearance levels will improve which means the body can get rid of lactic acid without it affecting their performance.
The following table demonstrate the effects of training on an athlete:
(McCardle et al, 1991)
This table shows that endurance and strength training help to improve and adapt the above variables and therefore the athletes’ body and performance. It is clear to see that both endurance and strength training have a positive affect on the athlete.
References
Wesson et al, 2001
McCardle et al, 1991
Stafford – Brown et al, 2004
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