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Home > PDHPE > Core 2 - Factors Affecting Performance > How does the body respond to aerobic training? > How does the body respond to aerobic training?

Stroke volume is the amount of blood pumped out of the heart during each contraction. For all heart rate levels, training will increase an athlete’s stroke volume. This means that for every heart beat, an athlete will be able to pump more blood from the heart to the working muscles.

How does stroke volume change as a result of training?

The graph below shows the effect of exercise at different heart rate levels on stroke volume for a trained and an untrained athlete. Heart rate (indicated in beats per minute or bpm) is an indication of how much work is being done, i.e. the higher the heart rate, the harder the work.

Student activity
What is the stroke volume of the trained and untrained athlete at 100 beats per minute and 170 beats per minute? What does this graph tell us about the effect of training on stroke volume? Give an explanation for this. How does stroke volume affect performance? Check your answers here.

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