Heart Rate
During aerobic exercise, peripheral veins, particularly those within muscle, dilate to accommodate the increased blood flow through exercising muscle. The skeletal-muscle pump assists in returning blood to the heart and maintaining cardiac output. A sudden cessation of strenuous exercise may cause blood to pool in peripheral dilated veins and the heart must beat faster and harder to adequately oxygenate the body and maintain blood pressure. A cool-down period allows a more gradual return to venous tone, and allows a gradual decline in heart rate that reduces stress on the organ.
Read more about this topic: Cooling Down
Famous quotes containing the words heart and/or rate:
“The Heart asks Pleasure—first—
And then—Excuse from Pain—”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“I don’t know but a book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf—at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel—you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety—& even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)