Pump Up My Heart

Let's Talk About Our Goals

Let's check in on our SMART goals!

• How is it going with your current goal?
• What are some ways you could improve your progress? (These are called "Grows.")
• What are you already doing well? (These are called "Glows.")

Guideline: Move More, Sit Less

Which guideline do you think matches today's lesson? Does anyone have a SMART goal that connects to it?

Warm-Up Activities

Try one of these to get started:

1. Guideline Popcorn: As a group, call out all 8 guidelines quickly, one after another.

2. Guideline Charades: Split into groups. Each group gets a guideline and must act it out silently while everyone else guesses.

3. Two Truths and One Lie:

• Truth: The average heart is about the size of your palm.
• Truth: The heart is a muscle, and it makes a "lub dub" sound.
• Lie: The only way to find your pulse is with a special tool to listen to your heart.
• (There are actually other ways to find your pulse — we'll learn about them today!)

4. Questions to Discuss or Write About:

• Have you ever heard the word "aerobic"? What do you think it means?
• What exercises do you do that make your heart work hard? How often do you do them?
• Do you think it's important to do exercises that make your heart stronger? Why or why not?

What You'll Learn Today

You'll learn what aerobic exercise is and why it matters for a healthy heart.

Key Words to Know

• Exercise: Body movement that uses energy and is planned, repeated, and done on purpose.
• Physical Activity: Any body movement made by your muscles that uses energy.
• Fitness: Being able to do everyday tasks with energy, without getting tired too fast.
• Heart: A muscle about the size of your palm. It's the center of your cardiovascular system and pumps blood through your body.
• Cardiovascular (Circulatory) System: The system that moves blood through your body. It includes your heart, blood vessels, and blood.
• Circulate: To travel in a path that comes back to where it started.
• Aerobic: Exercise where your body's big muscles move in a steady rhythm for a long stretch of time.
• Cardiorespiratory Fitness (Endurance): How well your heart and lungs can supply oxygen to your body during exercise that lasts a while.
• Intensity: How much effort or force it takes to do an activity or exercise.
• Heart Rate (Pulse Rate): The number of times your heart beats in one minute.
• Resting Heart Rate: Your heart rate when you're not exercising. For most people, it's between 60–100 beats per minute.
• Maximum Heart Rate: The fastest your heart can beat, based on your age.
• Target Heart Rate Range: The heart rate range you aim for during exercise to get the most benefit.

Do Now: Would You Rather

Split into two groups — one on each side of the room. For each question, walk to the side that matches your choice:

• Play basketball or soccer?
• Go jogging or go swimming?
• Exercise with a friend or exercise alone?
• Exercise indoors or outdoors?
• Go running or lift weights?
• Exercise with music or without?
• Exercise in the morning, afternoon, or night?
• Use equipment like weights or a treadmill, or skip the equipment?

Why did we play this game? To see what kinds of physical activities you like and how you like to exercise!

Exercise is body movement that uses energy and is planned, repeated, and done on purpose. It can be fun, and it can happen almost anywhere. As you saw in the game, there are many kinds of physical activity that count as exercise.

Physical activity is any body movement made by your muscles that uses energy. It's a big part of your overall fitness — being able to do daily tasks with energy, without wearing out.

Good to Know: My Heart in Action

Your body has a cardiovascular (circulatory) system. This system moves blood through your body and includes your heart, blood vessels, and blood. Circulate means to travel in a path and come back to where it started.

The heart is the pump that keeps your blood circulating. It's a muscle about the size of your palm, sitting at the center of your cardiovascular system.

That name makes sense once you break it down: cardio means heart, and vascular means blood vessels.

Blood travels through your vessels, carrying important nutrients to the rest of your body. For example, blood carries oxygen from your lungs to your muscles and tissues so they can work.

There are two types of blood vessels:

• Veins carry blood toward your heart to pick up more oxygen.
• Arteries carry blood away from your heart, delivering oxygen to the rest of your body.

Here's a trick to remember it: arteries starts with "A," just like it moves away from the heart.

Your heart is a muscle, just like your bicep (the muscle in your upper arm). If you exercise your bicep, what happens? It gets bigger and stronger, and you can lift heavier things.

Exercise works the same way for your heart — it makes your cardiovascular system stronger and healthier. The exercises that especially strengthen your heart are called aerobic exercises.

Aerobic exercise happens when your body's large muscles move in a steady rhythm for a long stretch of time. This is similar to cardiorespiratory endurance, which we'll explain next.

Can you name some aerobic exercises? Here are some examples:

• Brisk walking
• Running
• Hiking
• Skateboarding
• Rollerblading
• Bicycle riding
• Swimming
• Martial arts
• Sports like football, soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, and tennis
• House and yard work
• Dancing

Cardiorespiratory fitness (endurance) is how well your circulatory system (heart and blood vessels) and your respiratory system (lungs) work together to supply oxygen during exercise that lasts a while.

For an exercise to really help your heart and lungs, it should be done at a moderate to vigorous intensity — about 50–85% of your estimated maximum heart rate. Think of it as a 5 to 8 out of 10, with 10 being as hard as you can possibly work.

Intensity means how much effort, force, or work it takes to do an activity or exercise.

Today, we're learning more about the heart and the exercises that keep it strong! Just like other muscles, your heart needs exercise to stay strong so it can keep pumping blood well your whole life. If your heart is weak, it can become sick (called heart disease) or even stop working properly (called heart failure).

Optional: Watch a video about the heart.

Activity — Squeeze the Ball:
Before this activity, poke a hole in a tennis ball. Dunk the ball in a bucket of water until it fills up. Then hold it with the hole facing up and squeeze it with your fist.

Each time your heart squeezes, it pushes blood out — just like the water squirting from the ball. When you let go and the ball fills back up, that's like your heart refilling with blood from your lungs before pumping it out again.

Real World Relevance: Check Your Pulse

Have you ever heard your own heartbeat? Let's find out what it sounds like!

Activity — Homemade Stethoscope:
Work with a partner. Use an empty paper towel tube as a pretend stethoscope. One person holds one end of the tube against their chest, near their heart. The other person places their ear on the other end and listens. Then switch! You may need to move the tube around a little to find the heartbeat.

The sound you hear — "lub-dub" — is your heart pushing blood out and then filling back up.

Optional: Watch a video to learn more about the "lub-dub" sound.

Why does your heart rate change?

When you're resting and not moving, your heart doesn't have to work very hard to send oxygen-rich blood to your muscles and tissues.

But when you exercise, your heart has to work harder to deliver oxygen. One way it does this is by beating faster, so blood can travel through your body more quickly.

Since your body needs more blood and oxygen during exercise, your heart speeds up. That's why a faster heart rate is one of the signs that you're exercising! Other signs include breathing faster, your skin turning pink, or sweating.

Your heart rate (or pulse rate) is the number of times your heart beats in one minute. This rate can change depending on your weight, age, how active you are, and how stressed you feel.

Now let's practice finding and counting your own heart rate!

You can check your pulse at your neck, wrist, or chest — we recommend the wrist. You can feel your pulse on the artery that lines up with your thumb. Place your index and middle fingers gently over that spot and press lightly. Don't use your thumb to check — it has a faint pulse of its own, which could confuse your count!