Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff marks dot com
Speaker 1: where smart happens. Hi, I'm muscle brain with today's question
Speaker 1: why can a trained athlete run a marathon but a
Speaker 1: couch potato can't run half a mile? If you're out
Speaker 1: of shape, you know it. Even climbing a flight of
Speaker 1: stairs can leave you out of breath if you haven't
Speaker 1: been exercising regularly. Even a little exercise like going up
Speaker 1: the steps can put a strain on your body. Your
Speaker 1: body responds to exercise with a coordinated effort that involves
Speaker 1: many systems, including your muscles, your heart, your lungs, your
Speaker 1: blood vessels, your skin, your brain, and several others. When
Speaker 1: you do exercise, all those systems are working together. For example,
Speaker 1: the muscles provide the strength, power and endurance to do
Speaker 1: the exercise. Enzymes within those muscles mobile wise various fuels
Speaker 1: to provide a t P to meet the energy demands
Speaker 1: of the working muscle. The heart and blood vessels increase
Speaker 1: the blood flow to deliver more oxygen to the working muscle.
Speaker 1: The lungs increase the rate of breathing to deliver more
Speaker 1: oxygen to the muscle. All of these systems can be
Speaker 1: improved by training. Lack of training causes them to atrophy.
Speaker 1: Let's compare the couch potato with the trained athlete. The
Speaker 1: couch potato has several different problems. First, there are weakened
Speaker 1: or atropheed muscles. Second, there's weakened or atropheed heart muscles. Third,
Speaker 1: there's decreased metabolic enzymes in the muscles. Fourth, there's diminished
Speaker 1: lung capacity, and fifth there are the wrong metabolic fuels.
Speaker 1: If muscles aren't used regularly, their mass decreases, and so
Speaker 1: does their ability to store energy. The muscle proteins and
Speaker 1: fibers that develop the force diminished. Therefore, the couch potato
Speaker 1: simply can't generate the force required for the physical activity
Speaker 1: involved in running a marathon. The heart is a muscle,
Speaker 1: just like skeletal muscle. It also adapts to a less
Speaker 1: active state by losing muscle mass. While this doesn't affect
Speaker 1: the couch potatoes ability to pump blood to his or
Speaker 1: her tissues, it limits the ability to increase the blood
Speaker 1: flow during exercise. The heart will not be able to
Speaker 1: stretch as far or develop the pressure required to increase
Speaker 1: the cardiac output. That's why doctors tell you that you
Speaker 1: need to exercise regularly to keep your heart in shape.
Speaker 1: The enzymes involved in anaerobic which means without oxygen, and aerobic,
Speaker 1: which means with oxygen metabolism help provide the energy to
Speaker 1: working muscle. In the couch potato, however, the level of
Speaker 1: these enzymes goes down, so the inactive person's body can't
Speaker 1: metabolize fuel as well as an athlete's body can. The
Speaker 1: fuels used in the body during exercise mainly come from carbohydrates, glucose,
Speaker 1: muscle glycogen, and some fat. However, the couch potato has
Speaker 1: mostly fat and probably little glycogen available in the muscles.
Speaker 1: It takes longer to metabolize fat as a fuel than
Speaker 1: it takes to metabolize glycogen. That means that the breakdown
Speaker 1: of fat can't keep pace with the energy demands of
Speaker 1: working muscle. All of these different factors combined to limit
Speaker 1: the ability of the couch potato to exercise. The good
Speaker 1: news is that with a moderate exercise program, the couch
Speaker 1: potato or anyone else, can improve their fitness and their
Speaker 1: bodies response to exercise at least enough to do a
Speaker 1: ten k run. Be sure to check out our new
Speaker 1: video podcast Stuff from the future. Join House to Work
Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
Speaker 1: of tomorrow. The House to Works I Find app has
Speaker 1: a Rye Dowlet. It today on iTunes