Laurie's Blogs.
May 2017
Who Should You Blame for Muscle Fatigue – Calcium and Hydrogen
Remember a couple of blogs ago when I wrote The Lactic Acid Lies? Here I’ll make an attempt at part two: Who Should You Blame for your Muscle Fatigue?
So we remember from high school biology (and several courses afterwards), muscles require ATP as an energy source during muscle activity. You use up your systemic ATP / CP stores in approximately 10 seconds with intense activity, and then the Anaerobic metabolic pathway starts making Lactate for about the next 2 minutes. Lactate can be used aerobically as an energy substance (being converted by the liver into glucose and hydrogen). The aerobic pathway, when it kicks in, produces ATP by breaking down glycogen and glucose. Great!
When glucose or glycogen are broken down, they produce lactate and hydrogen ions. Again, the lactate is cleared by the body by metabolizing it for energy. However, if oxygen levels are low, then the hydrogen ions accumulate and the blood and muscles become acidic. The acidity blocks the nerve signals from the brain to the muscle fibres, and BAM! Tired legs (or whatever muscle group you’re working.)
Calcium could also be to blame. One study found that after long intense exercise (i.e. 3 hours of intense cycling), tiny leaks of calcium could be found inside of muscle cells. The calcium leak subsequently weakens muscle contraction and stimulates an enzyme that attacks muscle fibres, resulting in muscle fatigue. (Happy news is that the calcium leaks stopped after a few days rest.) Prior to learning this in people, initial experiments were conducted on mice, which led to this discovery.
So, from a QUICK look at what you could do to combat the problem:
Have some high-quality carbs before exercise or during exercise (i.e. grains, fruits, veggies) to provide more glucose for the system. I did find some resources claiming that Hydrogen water was useful… but that didn’t make sense. When I dug deeper, I found that hydroxide was what one might be looking for. A product called AquaOH- claimed to be a natural acid eliminator in a blog I was reading that sort of turned into an advertisement. (I don’t know anything about this product… I just liked that the blog was actually telling a story about hydrogen, lactate, the desire for OH- (hydroxide) to become H20 by claiming another hydrogen.)
And beyond just these two things, combating muscle fatigue and delayed onset muscle soreness is fodder for another day!
Happy exercising (you and your dogs) folks!
Cheers,
Laurie
References:
MACKENZIE, B. (2007) Muscle Fatigue [WWW] Available from: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/musclefatigue.htm [Accessed 5/5/2017]
MILLER, J. (2011) Muscle Fatigue & Soreness from Lactic Acid. Available from:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/376532-muscle-fatigue-soreness-from-lactic-acid/
[Accessed 5/5/2017]
Giere, S. (2012) What causes muscle fatigue, anyway? Available from:
http://my.moxymonitor.com/blog/bid/230090/What-Causes-Muscle-Fatigue-Anyway
[Accessed 5/5/2017]
