If a person's lung size cannot increase, how can physical exercise improve cardiorespiratory function?
General benefits of Physical activity
Regular physical activity induces numerous and positive adaptations in the body of those who practice it. These adaptations, in addition to increasing muscle and cardiorespiratory function, protect the body from numerous diseases. Among these, the most important are hypercholesterolemia, osteoporosis, diabetes and hypertension.
Thanks to these positive beneficial effects, many governments are encouraging the population to increase their level of physical activity, to accumulate at least thirty minutes of daily exercise for at least 4 days a week.
Benefits on Cardiorespiratory Functionality
Increasing one's cardiorespiratory function means being able to perform physical exercises with greater ease and less energy expenditure. This adaptation is due to the greater efficiency with which the body extracts oxygen from the blood and transports it to active muscles, where it is used to satisfy cellular energy demands.
Contrary to what many people think, physical exercise is not able to increase the shape, volume or ability to expand of the lungs. It follows that physical activity does not increase the vital capacity, that is, the parameter that indicates the maximum amount of air that a person is able to mobilize in a maximal respiratory act.
Therefore, when an out of shape person complains of a shortness of breath during a physical exercise does not mean that his lungs are smaller or less efficient than those of a trained person (unless specific diseases such as asthma, bronchitis or emphysema are present) .
The exercise capacity is in fact linked not so much to the absolute availability of oxygen as to the relative one.
A trained person's heart can pump more blood and get more oxygen and nutrients to the cells. Furthermore, the various tissues, especially the muscular tissue, optimize their ability to extract oxygen from the blood and quickly remove the carbon dioxide that is created as a waste product.
The real limiting factor of athletic performance is therefore the amount of oxygen that our body is able to extract from the air and to use for metabolic processes. This parameter, together with the respiratory ones, increases greatly in the passage from a sedentary lifestyle to an active life, then tends to stabilize.
We are all born with the ability to increase our level of physical activity through regular exercise.
Probably one of the greatest challenges of modern society is precisely to encourage and encourage the adoption of healthier lifestyles that include the regular practice of physical activity.
