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Training 101
If you are from my generation, you will rememeber watching Saturday morning cartoons on ABC and getting a dose of School House Rock. One of my favorites was "Energy", which featured a singing globe who exposed the virtues of conservation of the Earth's engergy making systems.
I find it appropraite conjure up that image. You see, energy making systems - more specifically the development of your physiological energy making systems - is the key to improvment in racing performance.
The body's main muscle fuel is ATP. ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is a chemical compund that is self produced in the body. It is is stored on a cellular level and is used at this level by the body and is used (along with creatnine phosphate) as a source of enegry for muscle activity. Cellular supplies for this energy system lasts for about 20-40 seconds.
If your body requires more ATP than is present in your cells, then your body uses the process of glycolysis to convert glucose ("blood sugar") to ATP. During the first phase of glycolysis, a substance called pyruvic acid is formed from the chemical break down of glucose. Your body will attempt to transform the pyruvic acid to form more ATP, which will in turn be used to fuel your needy muscles. The successful formation of pyruvic acid in this phase is determined by the presence or lack of oxygen. This is key to what energy making system will be used to get fuel to your nuscles by the body after the inital cellular stores of ATP are exhausted.
How the ATP is formed for the muscle activity and how much is formed is determined by the energy making system used. The two systems are aerobic ("with oxygen") and anaerobic ("without oxygen").
In the aerobic system, once pyruvic acid is sucessfuly formed, the presence of oxygen and other enzyme activity allows a complete glycolysis to occur. The body uses the pyruvic acid to allow ATP to be processed by two new pathways called the Krebs cycle and electron transport. These pathways allow for complete metabolazation of the glucose molocule and produces 36 units of ATP. As you may know, the aerobic system is used by your body to feed oxygen to your muscles for this purpose. When you run aerobicaly you are running within a pace that allows your body to take in enough oxygen to sustain this type of energy making production.
In the anaerobic system, the lack of sufficent oxygen will cause lactic acid to be formed. If lactic acid is formed instead of pyruvic acid then the result is a few units of ATP. This is a very inffecent way of froming energy. Another effect of this energy system is that there is a hydrogen ion given off in the chemical exchange in the formation of ATP. The build up of this hydrogen ion is the main culprit for that "tight" feeling signaling the onset of muscle failure.
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