The Oxygen Muscle Connection

September 5, 2024 by Robert

Oxygen is of critical necessity for muscle strength, stamina, and endurance.

It only takes a couple of minutes of exercise before your body needs to get more oxygen to the muscles. How much oxygen muscles need depends on how much blood gets to the muscles. And how much O² the muscles can pull from the blood cells into the muscle tissue. Muscles that work pull three times more O² out of the blood than resting muscles do. Here are five ways the body delivers more blood, and thus more oxygen, to the working muscles.

increased local blood flow to the working muscle
diversion of blood flow from nonessential organs to the working muscle
the increased flow of blood from the heart (cardiac output)
increased rate and depth of breathing
increased unloading of oxygen from hemoglobin in working muscle

Oxygen is so important to the peak performance of muscles that some Olympic athletes illegally use new performance-enhancing drug classifications. Tests are not available to detect these new drugs since the drugs are so new.

“They act like EPO (erythropoietin), but they are structurally different, and that means the current EPO tests will not pick them up,” German researcher Mario Thevis told delegates to the conference in London convened by World Sports Law Report.

The reason these drugs are used is because of their oxygen-boosting effects. EPO stimulates the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells. The increase in the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood allows muscles to perform for longer.

Just like your car’s engine, your muscles need O² to burn fuel. Muscles use the chemical adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as their energy source. And oxygen is required to break down glucose and create ATP.

When your muscles use up the available oxygen, then your muscles go into a state called “oxygen debt.” As a result, your muscles start converting glucose into lactic acid, which is related to muscle fatigue.

In contrast, if your muscles have enough O², they will not produce lactic acid. And they will not fatigue as quickly.

So, as you can see, your muscles need oxygen while exercising. But they also need it afterward. After you exercise, your liver continues to need quantities of oxygen which are necessary for it to break down the lactic acid into simple carbohydrates.

Priming your body with a quality O² supplement like OxygenSuperCharger™ can help give your muscles access to the additional O² necessary to stay strong, work longer and recover faster.

Summary