Your heart is meant to pump oxygen-rich blood and nutrients to organs and other parts around your body. The following figure demonstrates this.
The Four Pumping Chambers of the Heart
Veins carry blood lacking oxygen from the body to the heart’s right atrium. There, the blood comes to the right ventricle, which pumps this blood to the lungs to refresh its oxygen supply.
When this blood, now rich with oxygen, returns to the heart, it returns to the left atrium. It then enters the left ventricle and is then pumped throughout the body.
Your Hardworking Heart
Your heart works hard. An average heart rate is 60-100 times per minute, every day of your life. These heartbeats pump blood all over your body. By the time you reach 70 years old, your heart has pumped close to 50 million gallons of blood; and your heart is only about the size of your fist!
