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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff marks dot com

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Speaker 1: where smart happens. Hi, I'm muscle brain with today's question

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Speaker 1: why can a trained athlete run a marathon but a

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Speaker 1: couch potato can't run half a mile? If you're out

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Speaker 1: of shape, you know it. Even climbing a flight of

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Speaker 1: stairs can leave you out of breath if you haven't

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Speaker 1: been exercising regularly. Even a little exercise like going up

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Speaker 1: the steps can put a strain on your body. Your

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Speaker 1: body responds to exercise with a coordinated effort that involves

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Speaker 1: many systems, including your muscles, your heart, your lungs, your

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Speaker 1: blood vessels, your skin, your brain, and several others. When

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Speaker 1: you do exercise, all those systems are working together. For example,

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Speaker 1: the muscles provide the strength, power and endurance to do

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Speaker 1: the exercise. Enzymes within those muscles mobile wise various fuels

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Speaker 1: to provide a t P to meet the energy demands

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Speaker 1: of the working muscle. The heart and blood vessels increase

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Speaker 1: the blood flow to deliver more oxygen to the working muscle.

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Speaker 1: The lungs increase the rate of breathing to deliver more

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Speaker 1: oxygen to the muscle. All of these systems can be

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Speaker 1: improved by training. Lack of training causes them to atrophy.

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Speaker 1: Let's compare the couch potato with the trained athlete. The

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Speaker 1: couch potato has several different problems. First, there are weakened

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Speaker 1: or atropheed muscles. Second, there's weakened or atropheed heart muscles. Third,

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Speaker 1: there's decreased metabolic enzymes in the muscles. Fourth, there's diminished

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Speaker 1: lung capacity, and fifth there are the wrong metabolic fuels.

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Speaker 1: If muscles aren't used regularly, their mass decreases, and so

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Speaker 1: does their ability to store energy. The muscle proteins and

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Speaker 1: fibers that develop the force diminished. Therefore, the couch potato

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Speaker 1: simply can't generate the force required for the physical activity

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Speaker 1: involved in running a marathon. The heart is a muscle,

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Speaker 1: just like skeletal muscle. It also adapts to a less

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Speaker 1: active state by losing muscle mass. While this doesn't affect

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Speaker 1: the couch potatoes ability to pump blood to his or

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Speaker 1: her tissues, it limits the ability to increase the blood

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Speaker 1: flow during exercise. The heart will not be able to

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Speaker 1: stretch as far or develop the pressure required to increase

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Speaker 1: the cardiac output. That's why doctors tell you that you

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Speaker 1: need to exercise regularly to keep your heart in shape.

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Speaker 1: The enzymes involved in anaerobic which means without oxygen, and aerobic,

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Speaker 1: which means with oxygen metabolism help provide the energy to

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Speaker 1: working muscle. In the couch potato, however, the level of

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Speaker 1: these enzymes goes down, so the inactive person's body can't

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Speaker 1: metabolize fuel as well as an athlete's body can. The

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Speaker 1: fuels used in the body during exercise mainly come from carbohydrates, glucose,

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Speaker 1: muscle glycogen, and some fat. However, the couch potato has

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Speaker 1: mostly fat and probably little glycogen available in the muscles.

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Speaker 1: It takes longer to metabolize fat as a fuel than

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Speaker 1: it takes to metabolize glycogen. That means that the breakdown

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Speaker 1: of fat can't keep pace with the energy demands of

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Speaker 1: working muscle. All of these different factors combined to limit

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Speaker 1: the ability of the couch potato to exercise. The good

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Speaker 1: news is that with a moderate exercise program, the couch

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Speaker 1: potato or anyone else, can improve their fitness and their

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Speaker 1: bodies response to exercise at least enough to do a

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Speaker 1: ten k run. Be sure to check out our new

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