Body Basics
Two minutes a day on how the human body actually works. No medical background needed — start anywhere.
Your heart is two pumps in one
Every day, roughly 7,500 liters of blood move through your heart — even though the heart itself is only about the size of your fist.
Two sides, two jobs
Your heart is really two pumps sitting side by side, sharing one muscular wall. The right side collects blood that has already delivered its oxygen to the body and pushes it into the lungs to pick up a fresh supply. The left side then receives that newly oxygenated blood from the lungs and pumps it out to every other part of the body.
Two chambers on each side
Each side of the heart has two chambers stacked on top of each other. The upper chamber, called the atrium, is a holding area that receives incoming blood and gives it a small push down. The lower chamber, called the ventricle, has much thicker muscle and does the real work of pumping blood out and onward.