How Fit are you?

How These Systems Ensure Organ System Recovery:

These energy systems are not isolated; they work in a wonderfully coordinated symphony. During exercise, they provide the energy for muscle contraction, but also for vital organ systems:

Cardiovascular System: The heart needs energy to pump blood, delivering oxygen and nutrients to working muscles and removing waste products. During recovery, it works to return blood flow to normal and regulate blood pressure.
Respiratory System: The lungs require energy for breathing, ensuring oxygen intake and carbon dioxide expulsion. Post-exercise, breathing rates gradually return to resting levels.
Musculoskeletal System: Muscles need energy for contraction and also for repair and growth during recovery. The delivery of amino acids (the building blocks of protein) via the blood is crucial here.
Nervous System: The brain and nerves consume energy constantly. During exercise, the nervous system orchestrates movement. In recovery, it helps regulate physiological processes and facilitates rest.
Endocrine System: Hormones (like adrenaline and cortisol) are released during exercise to mobilize energy. Post-exercise, the endocrine system works to restore hormonal balance.

The Body’s Energetic Shenanigans: How Your Inner Furnace Works

Now, let’s get slightly more serious (but only slightly) and understand the magical energy systems that keep your magnificent machine running and, more importantly, recovering. Think of your body as a high-tech car with several fuel tanks and different ways of burning fuel.

Your body primarily uses ATP (adenosine triphosphate) as its immediate energy currency. But how does it make ATP? That’s where the energy systems come in:

The Phosphagen System (The “Sprint and Bolt” System):
- How it works: This is your express lane for energy! It uses stored ATP and a molecule called creatine phosphate to quickly regenerate ATP.
- When it’s used: Short, explosive bursts of activity – think a 10-second sprint, lifting a heavy weight, or that sudden dash for the last piece of pizza.
- Recovery: This system recovers quickly, often within a few minutes, by replenishing creatine phosphate stores. It’s why you can do another sprint after a short rest.
The Glycolytic System (The “Middle-Distance Powerhouse” System):
- How it works: This system breaks down glucose (from carbohydrates) without oxygen. It produces ATP more slowly than the phosphagen system but can sustain effort for longer. A byproduct is lactic acid (or more accurately, lactate and hydrogen ions), which contributes to the “burn” you feel.
- When it’s used: Moderate-intensity, sustained efforts lasting from about 30 seconds to a few minutes – think a 400-meter sprint, a vigorous set of exercises, or rapidly walking up a few flights of stairs.
- Recovery: The body clears lactate and converts it back into glucose or uses it as fuel, typically recovering within 30-60 minutes, though muscle glycogen repletion takes longer.
The Oxidative System (The “Long-Haul Marathoner” System):
- How it works: This is your ultimate endurance engine! It uses oxygen to break down carbohydrates, fats, and even proteins for a steady, abundant supply of ATP. It’s efficient but slower to kick in.
- When it’s used: Any activity lasting longer than a few minutes – walking, jogging, cycling, prolonged dancing, or, indeed, that epic binge-watching session.
- Recovery: This system is constantly working. Recovery involves replenishing fuel stores (glycogen and fat), repairing muscle damage, and balancing hormones. This can take hours, even days, depending on the intensity and duration of the activity.

This is it, this is it. This is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball. This is it, this is it

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life, the facts of life. There’s a time you got to go and show you’re growin’ now you know about the facts of life, the facts of life. When the world never seems to be livin up to your dreams and suddenly you’re finding out the facts of life are all about you.

Lady Godiva was a freedom rider, she didn’t care if the whole world looked

The year is 1987 and NASA launches the last of America’s deep space probes. In a freak mishap, Ranger 3 and its pilot Captain William ‘Buck’ Rogers are blown out of their trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support system and returns Buck Rogers to Earth five hundred years later.

This is it, this is it. This is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball. This is it, this is it. Straight ahead, and rest assured you can’t be sure at all. So while you’re here enjoy the view, keep on doing what you do, so hold on tight we’ll muddle through one day at a time, one day at a time. So up on your feet, up on your feet – somewhere there’s music playing. Don’t you worry none, we’ll just take it like it comes, one day at a time, one day at a time.

Extraordinary crimes against the people and the state had to be avenged by agents extraordinary

Lady Godiva was a freedom rider, she didn’t care if the whole world looked. Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her, she was a sister who really cooked. Isadora was the first bra burner, ain’t you glad she showed up. And when the country was falling apart Betsy Ross got it all sewed up. And then there’s Maude. That old compromisin’, enterprisin’, anything but tranquilizing, right-on Maude.

My name is Victoria Winters. My journey is beginning – a journey that I hope will open the doors of life and link my past with my future. A journey that will bring me to a dark place to the edge of the sea high atop Widow’s Hill; and a house called Collinwood. A world never known, with people I’ve never met. People who, tonight, are still only shadows in my mind but who will soon fill the days and nights of my tomorrow…

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
Carl Sagan

Extraordinary crimes against the people and the state had to be avenged by agents extraordinary. Two such people are John Steed, top professional; and his partner, Emma Peel, talented amateur… otherwise known as The Avengers.