With the 2012 Olympics filling millions of television screens across the globe, it’s clear that World-Class athletes have that special “something” about them. They are somehow different from so-called regular athletes – perhaps they were just born with talent to break records and push the boundaries of what’s humanly possible and the rest of the world’s population just isn’t so lucky. Right?
Wrong.
While these athletes are indeed set apart, they are still human. Just like everyone else in the world. What’s different about them is their ability to train their brains and their bodies at a level that primes them for optimum physical performance.
At the foundation of their training, is the supreme understanding of how the human body operates as a living, breathing organism. Aside from the exceptions, scientific research shows us just how similar we all are in the interworking of our internal systems. Our joints move the same, our blood flows the same, our muscles contract the same, our body utilizes oxygen the same – and this proves that while Olympic athletes may appear to be superior (due to their life’s commitment to their respective sport), we can all learn to train our bodies for optimum physical performance because we are working with the same variables.
As the world watched in awe, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, broke the 100M Olympic record with a time of 9.63 seconds. As he ripped across the finish line, he slowed to a trot and the cameras caught a glimpse of his chest as it heaved up and down, pulling oxygen into his body. So what happened inside of Bolt’s body during those 9.63 seconds?
When we engage in physical activity, our exercise is either considered: 1. Aerobic Exercise or 2. Anaerobic Exercise. The difference in these two forms of exercise is the way in which our bodies produce the energy necessary to carry out the activity we are performing.
Aerobic activity is exercise that utilizes oxygen to produce the necessary energy, ATP (Adenosine Tri-Phosphate), to carry out the activity, such as jogging or running at a slower pace.
Anaerobic activity is exercise that does not utilize oxygen to produce the necessary energy ATP to carry out the activity, such as sprinting. Anaerobic exercise relies on energy sources that are stored in the muscles and, unlike aerobic exercise, is not dependent on oxygen from (breathing) the air.
As an example – Think of a truck traveling down the freeway: as long as the truck is moving at 50mph, he is using tank A. Once he starts going 95mph, the truck will start using tank A, tank B, methane gas or whatever it needs to keep that velocity. The human body works the same way.
Anaerobic exercise is so high and so fast that oxygen cannot be delivered and utilized to produce energy, therefore the activity can only be carried out for short periods of time. This produces lactic acid as a byproduct, which becomes the rate-limiting step in the activity and generally shortens the time of exertion to about a minute or less. It is also what causes the familiar “burn” in the muscles, until flushed away in the venous circulation.
So, Bolt’s sprint was carried out as anaerobic activity.
Engaging in anaerobic activity (fast sprints for short period of time, ex: 1 min), followed by longer duration of aerobic activity (slower run for extended period of time, ex: 3 mins) is called High Intensity Interval Training.
If you want to train your body both aerobically – increasing your body’s ability to extract oxygen from your bloodstream – and anaerobically – training your heart as a pump – you need to engage in interval training.
