Exercise Physiology (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Exercise physiology is the study of the function of the human body during various acute and chronic exercise conditions. These effects are significant during both short, high-intensity exercise, as well as with prolonged strenuous exercise such as done in endurance sports like marathons, ultramarathons, and road bicycle racing. In exercise, the liver generates extra glucose, while increased cardiovascular activity by the heart, and respiration by the lungs, provides an increased supply of oxygen. When exercise is very prolonged and strenuous, a decline, however, can occur in blood levels of glucose. In some individuals, this might even cause hypoglycemia and hypoxemia. There can also be cognitive and physical impairments due to dehydration. Another risk is low plasma sodium blood levels. Prolonged exercise is made possible by the human thermoregulation capacity to remove exercise waste heat by sweat evaporation. This capacity evolved to enable early humans after many hours of persistence hunting to exhaust game animals that cannot remove so effectively exercise heat from their body.