Circulatory System

Your entire body works together to keep you healthy. All parts of your body depend upon all the body systems to do their job.

Your CIRCULATORY SYSTEM provides each of your cells with nutrients and oxygen and also provides a means for removing the metabolic waste produced by each cell.

Your Circulatory System is made up of arteries, veins and the heart, plus the Lymphatic system.

The "heart" of the matter is your heart. It's about the size of a man's fist, usually weighs somewhere around 11 ounces and is located slightly off of center in your lower left chest. It has two sides and each side has two chambers called the atrium and the ventricle. These chambers have one-way valves to keep your blood flowing in the right direction and not "backing up." The right side of the heart pumps blood to the lungs where it receives its oxygen. The blood is then returned to the left side of the heart where it pumps oxygenated blood to the entire body.

Your heart is very busy, in fact it never takes a vacation. It works every moment of our lives and beats an average of 70 times per minute, pumping about sixteen pints of blood through the body, even while you're sleeping.

Your veins and arteries are an incredible network of blood vessels: about 60,000 miles of blood vessels. Even the blood vessels specialize. The heart has its own blood vessels which are called coronary arteries and cardiac veins. Their only job is to supply the heart with nutrients and oxygen. The cardiac muscle is thick and strong, surrounded on the outside by the pericardium and on the inside by the endocardium. These are layers of tissue that protect the heart and work to prevent blood from leaking out of the heart into your chest cavity.

Although it is specialized muscle tissue, it is still "muscle" and needs regular exercise to strengthen it. Exercise for the heart means that you need to work it harder than you normally work it, get your heart rate up, make it beat quicker for a sustained period of time. Strengthening your heart will allow it to pump more blood with each beat and this helps make the whole system more efficient.

Oxygenated blood is pumped through your arteries. These arteries branch out into smaller and smaller vessels to reach every part of your body. The smallest vessels are called capillaries. This is where the "rubber meets the road" so to speak, or where some of the real work is done. Here is where the nutrient/waste exchange takes place. Oxygen rich blood, carrying nutrients is given to the cells and the oxygen depleted, nutrient deficient blood is taken back to the heart and lungs by way of the veins.