Lungs.

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lung

The lung is the essential respiration organ in air-breathing. In humans the two lungs are located in the chest on either side of the heart. Their principal function is to transport oxygen from the atmosphere into the bloodstream, and to release carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere. This exchange of gases is accomplished in the mosaic of specialized cells that form millions of tiny, exceptionally thin-walled air sacs called alveoli.
Exercise

The amount of air you need to breathe in depends on how active you are.

When you are sitting down you only take in about 15 breaths a minute, giving you around 12 litres of air (a litre is one and three-quarter pints). From this your lungs will extract just one fifth of a litre of oxygen.

During exercise your breathing and heart rate increase. Exercising flat out, a top-class athlete can expect to increase his/her breathing rate to around 40 to 60 breaths a minute. This means they take in an incredible 100 to 150 litres of air, extracting around five litres of oxygen every single minute.

Even those of us with more modest goals need to double our lung intake when we exercise. Our lungs must be able to respond to our body's increased demands for oxygen.

As you start to move about, the muscles in your body send messages to your brain that they need more oxygen. Your brain then sends signals to the muscles that control breathing - your diaphragm and the muscles between your ribs - so that they shorten and relax more often. This causes you to take more breaths.

More oxygen will be absorbed from your lungs and carried to the muscles you are using to exercise - mainly your arms and legs.

For you to become more active your muscles will need to produce more energy. They do this by breaking down glucose from your food, but to do this they need oxygen. If there is too little oxygen they will try to produce energy in a different way. But this can lead to a build-up of a chemical called lactic acid, which causes cramp - something that many athletes are all too familiar with.

Athletes train so that their lungs and muscles become more efficient and it takes longer for lactic acid to build up. This means that their muscles can work harder. In fact, everyone can benefit from exercise to strengthen their lungs and muscles.

Physical training

Through exercise you can train your body so that more oxygen is delivered to your muscles.

Breathing control

Breathing control concentrates on using the lower chest with relaxation of the upper chest and shoulders. This encourages you to use the diaphragm more efficiently. Concentrate on allowing your abdomen to move out as you breathe in, rather than allowing it to be sucked inwards. Practice breathing control with one hand on your abdomen, as shown in the diagram opposite.

Breathing control will help slow down your breathing rate and will reduce any anxiety if you do become breathless.

 

Lungs

1:Trachea 2:Pulmonary artery 3:Pulmonary vein 4:Alveolar duct 5:Alveoli 6:Cardiac notch 7:Bronchioles 8:Tertiary bronchi 9:Secondary bronchi 10:Primary bronchi 11:Larynx

This article was originally based on an entry from a public domain edition of Gray's Anatomy.

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