Energy Wrap Up

Let's continue.

So you are exercising non-stop for longer than 3 minutes. You can't keep up the intensity but you settle into a nice rythm. Now we finally get to the most efficient form of energy production in your body. The aerobic system. Now you are using oxygen to directly fuel your muscles. Oxygen is being used to burn glycogen stores.

This will sustain you for about two hours. This is the energy system people are talking about when they say "cardio."

Believe it or not, your body won't start burning actual fat for fuel during exercise until you deplete your glycogen and for most poeple it's about 2 hours. So very rarely do people burn fat during exercise. The fat burning comes after, but that's another topic. Fat is very difficult for your body to convert to energy. Which is why it is a last resort, so to speak, for energy production.

So the two systems in the aerobic system are the glycogen and fat system.

Of course all these systems overlap a little and vary depending on the person and what sort of shape they're in. I feel it is important for people to have at least a basic understanding of how their body produces energy. Not all exercise is the same.

Some workouts I concentrate on my glycogen system. Some workouts I go all anaerobic and concentrate on my ATP/PC and Lactate systems. And sometimes I combine all of them. Truth is the average person, even the average fit, person won't use the fat burning system too often. You need to be exercising non-stop for about 2 hours. So these are the marathon runner types. That's not me.

Understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. It helps you to see the real benefits of exercise. Recognize those and you'll never want to stop.

Train smart,

RL