Science Corner

The wonders of Exercise PART 1

Have you guys ever wondered why will you breathe heavier and faster when you are exercising or competing in sports? Perhaps, or even having aches and sores after exercises? Well, these are all very common and normal reactions of our body which you will see even on world class athletes.

Our human body is an extremely complex and extra-ordinary “machine” ever made by the nature. In the aspect of exercising, the body employs an incredibly complex set of processes to meet the demands of working muscles during exercising. In this article, we will be looking at how our body responses to strenuous exercise, and I will be referring to them as the exercise physiology.

No matter which types of sports are you playing, be it, swimming or jogging, you need to use your muscles to play them. In fact, even walking requires the use of our muscles. These activities use different muscles groups to generate motions. For instances, when we exercise, our heart beats faster. Cardiac muscles of the heart are contracting faster than at normal circumstances like walking and sleeping.

When you exercise, your muscles act something like electric motors. Your muscles take in a source of energy and they use it to generate force. An electric motor uses electricity to supply its energy. Your muscles are biochemical motors, and they use a chemical called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for their energy source. During the process of "burning" ATP, your muscles need three things:

They need oxygen, because chemical reactions require ATP and oxygen is consumed to produce ATP.
• They need to eliminate metabolic wastes (carbon dioxide, lactic acid) that the chemical reactions generate.
• They need to get rid of heat. Just like an electric motor, a working muscle generates heat that it needs to get rid of.

In order to continue exercising, your muscles must continuously make ATP. To make this happen, your body must supply oxygen to the muscles and eliminate the waste products and heat. The more strenuous the exercise, the greater the demands of working muscle. If these needs are not met, then exercise will cease -- that is, you become exhausted and you won't be able to keep going.

[Information are extracted from http://health.howstuffworks.com]
Courtesy of howstuffworks.com =D