Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1979 Spring;11(1):36-41.

Control of skin circulation during exercise and heat stress

M F Roberts, C B Wenger
  • PMID: 481154

Control of skin circulation during exercise and heat stress

M F Roberts et al. Med Sci Sports. 1979 Spring.

Abstract

At any given environmental and mean skin temperature, exercise brings about an increase in internal body temperature and skin blood flow. At high environmental temperatures, when skin temperature is elevated, skin blood flow at any given internal temperature reaches higher levels than at cooler skin temperatures. Increased cutaneous blood flow serves to deliver metabolic heat from the core to the skin, where the heat is lost to the environment by convective, radiative, and evaporative mechanisms. However, at high levels of skin blood flow, peripheral vascular pooling and fluid losses by filtration lead to reduced central venous pressure. This lowers cardiac stroke volume, and requires a higher heart rate to maintain a given cardiac output. Mechanisms which alleviate some of the cardiovascular strain produced by exercise in the heat include the following: acutely, reflexes which arise from receptors in working muscles produce vasoconstriction in a number of central and peripheral vascular beds. Other reflexes, arising from cardiac baroreceptors, produce additional peripheral vasoconstriction when cardiac filling is impaired. In the long term, physical conditioning and heat acclimation lead to increases in sweat output during thermal stress, leading to cooler skin and core temperature during exercise, and decreasing the level of skin blood flow needed for regulation of body temperature.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources