How do we use our body's energy when running?

On July 21, 2024, Feng Qiang, associate researcher at the Institute of Sports Science of the General Administration of Sports of China and one of the top ten popular science figures in 2022, gave a speech entitled "Flying Life, Science Assists" at the "Looking at the Olympics with Scientific Eyes" theme session of the Popular Science China Starry Sky Forum.

The following is an excerpt from Feng Qiang’s speech:

Running is not only a highly popular competitive sport, but also an important sport for us to enjoy a healthy life and experience a healthy lifestyle.

Running may seem simple, but it actually contains complex physiological mechanisms. The human body has a complete set of sophisticated energy metabolism systems to accurately regulate the output and use of energy during exercise, to support us in participating in competitions of different distances and intensities.

How do we use our body's energy when running?

Our body has three main energy supply systems, including phosphagen, glycolysis and aerobic energy supply systems. These are closely related to everyone's daily exercise.

The phosphagen energy supply system mainly provides us with energy during short-distance sprinting. The characteristics of this system are that it reacts very quickly and provides energy very efficiently, but it lasts for a very short time. Often within 10 seconds, we will consume the ATP-CP stored in the blood in the body, so that some energy substances in the body can play the greatest role to help short-distance sprinting. It is like the fast running of cheetahs in the animal kingdom. Fast short-distance sprinting is the cheetah's strength, but it cannot last for a long time.

When the running distance gradually increases, for example, when we run to 400 meters, the glycolysis energy supply system begins to play a major role in maintaining a stable supply of energy.

When the distance is further extended to 5,000 meters or even further, the functional proportion of the aerobic energy supply system will gradually increase. Just like the curve in the figure, as time goes by, the fat stored in our body will gradually participate in the energy supply system, and the proportion will continue to increase, to improve the efficiency of our energy supply and maintain long-term, low-intensity exercise.

So what does this have to do with our daily exercise?

Of our three major energy supply systems, only the aerobic energy supply system uses fat as raw material to stimulate body metabolism and maintain exercise intensity. When the exercise intensity is too high, such as short-distance, fast sprint events, the efficiency of burning fat in our body will be very low.

For example, in a tennis match, players often take a minute or even longer between each ball, and this is for professional athletes. For ordinary enthusiasts like us, we shoot a basketball, kick a ball for a while, and sprint 30 meters, and we may need to rest for two to three minutes before the next sprint. Such exercise is relatively inefficient in controlling the burning of fat in our bodies.

Therefore, if you want to exercise for the purpose of losing weight, you need to mobilize the burning of more body fat and use the aerobic energy supply system to participate in energy supply to help maintain your weight.

Precisely because of the different energy supply characteristics of the body, you may also pay attention when watching a game that for many athletes, there is a big gap between their body shape and their usual training status. This is related to the focus of the energy supply system we just mentioned.

How to improve your athletic ability?

If you want to improve your athletic ability during running, you must carry out targeted physical training.

So in daily life, how can we improve the effect of exercise through physical training? Here is the athletic ability pyramid. The base of this pyramid is basic athletic ability, including some basic movement abilities. Going up one level, we can improve the energy metabolism system through our training, and continuously improve our performance through more professional running posture and technical movement exercises. So for most people, ensuring a good basic foundation is very effective in training our athletic ability.

In addition, both professional athletes and ordinary sports enthusiasts should follow this concept: through physical training, they should constantly improve their strength, flexibility, balance, agility and other physical qualities, and lay a solid foundation, so as to reduce energy consumption during running. Laying a good foundation for physical fitness is the most important plan to improve special abilities.

In addition, warm-up exercises are also crucial to ensure sports safety. It is recommended that you use dynamic stretching to improve the efficiency of warm-up. Studies have shown that dynamic stretching is the most effective way to warm up before exercise.

In addition to warm-up, I found that some running enthusiasts do not pay attention to the training of the gluteal muscles. In fact, you can look at some high-level sprinters. Their lower limbs and gluteal muscles are very developed, because the hip extension function is very important for pushing forward and running fast. If the gluteal muscle training is not taken seriously, the efficiency and speed of running will be affected. It is recommended that you exercise the gluteal muscles through squats, hip bridges and other movements.

Muscle Activation Exercise Tools

In addition to the gluteal muscles, the deep core muscles are also very important for preventing sports injuries. Usually, people may joke about eight-pack abs. In fact, whether or not you have eight-pack abs may not be that important, but these small muscles deep in the abdomen are very important for preventing sports injuries. They exist in the deep, core area of ​​our abdomen.

By exercising to improve the muscle strength of the deep muscle groups in the core area of ​​the human body, we can help us reduce the energy consumption of useless movements, increase the stability of the body, and reduce the risk of lower limb injuries. It is recommended that you can improve the stability of the deep core muscle groups through exercises such as abdominal bridges and four-point support.

Author: Feng Qiang, associate researcher at the Institute of Sports Science of the General Administration of Sports of China, and one of the top ten popular science figures in China in 2022