Saturday, April 5, 2014

"Why is your time slower?" "I was thinking about chemistry..."

After a track meet this morning, I thought I had the perfect topic to blog about. Just wanted to say I revile the weather man for excluding vicious winds and many clouds from his 60 degrees forecast. Miserable Saturday morning. Getting elbowed by other competitors was pretty aggravating also. As I ran my relay, I noticed a burning feeling in my muscles. For once there's chemistry people might actually care about! Who knew there's actually a way to slow the chemical reaction that's causing this aching feeling.

Well most people know the body breaks down glucose using oxygen to make ATP, ready energy. If you don't then go back to freshman biology. Anyway, many of the high-level activities the body performs require more oxygen than the body can provide. Therefore glucose can't be broken down with oxygen and a big mess happens that produces only a little bit of energy and lactate. This lactate is acidic causing your muscle aches! So all of this soreness for barely any energy. Check out the article here.

Most people don't know this, but this burning sensation is actually a sign from you body saying "stop stupid!" So your body is telling you not to do physical activities. I'll stick to Olympic eating. I think this is weird since people always tell you to fight through this burning sensation even though it's really trying to stop you from damaging your muscles severely. Based on my soar muscles, my body must be a lactate factory. Off to gorge myself in food!

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