Final answer:
Calculating the change in heart rate after activity is crucial as it reveals the heart's response to exercise, impacts cardiac output, helps ensure that exercise intensity remains within a safe target heart rate range and informs on the heart's efficiency and cardiac reserve.
Step-by-step explanation:
Importance of Calculating Change in Heart Rate After Activity:
It is important to calculate the change in heart rate after activity because it shows the heart's response to increased physiological demand and provides insight into cardiovascular health and performance. the heart rate (HR) change in combination with stroke volume (SV) contributes to the cardiac output (CO), which is the total volume of blood pumped by the heart per minute. While the average HR gives a baseline understanding the change in heart rate offers a more complete picture of how efficiently the heart adjusts to exercise, keeps within the target heart rate range for optimal cardiovascular health, and helps to understand the heart's capacity, known as cardiac reserve.
The relationship between HR and CO is complex, starting with an initial increase in both HR and SV during light to moderate activity. beyond certain levels, such as a HR above 160 beats per minute (bpm), this relationship can reverse as higher HR may lead to shorter diastolic filling times, which, in turn, reduces SV and eventually may lower CO, despite further increases in HR. Additionally, this information can indicate the level of cardiac reserve and the efficiency of the heart, as an athlete's heart can function significantly better than that of a nonathlete. Hence, measuring HR change rather than just its average, especially after activity, is crucial for monitoring cardiovascular health and exercise intensity.