Computational study of blood flow in lower extremities under intense physical load

Abstract

This work is aimed at computational study of the blood flow in lower extremities under intense physical load. We present a modified 1D cardiovascular system model describing skeletal-muscle pumping and autoregulation effects on the blood flow in lower extremities. Skeletal-muscle pump effect is introduced as an external time-periodical pressure function applied to a group of veins. The period of this function is associated with the two-stride period during running. The computational study reveals the explicit optimal stride frequency providing the maximum blood flow through the lower extremities. It is shown that the optimal stride frequency depends on personal parameters. The model is validated by a comparison to the stride frequencies of a number of top-level athletes, therefore, providing a method to assess the level of physical conditioning.