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Anaerobic
The term anaerobic means ‘without oxygen’. Anaerobic exercise is the most common
human use of the anaerobic process and involves muscular work/effort that causes
the body to use more oxygen than it takes in. The process used for anaerobic
exercise is anaerobic respiration.
Anaerobic exercise uses muscles at high intensity and a high rate of work for
a short period of time. Anaerobic exercise helps us increase our muscle strength
and keeps our body ready for quick bursts of speed, such as in response to a
perceived threat (the body’s fight or flight mechanism). In short anaerobic
exercise is short and fast.
An example to explain the anaerobic process is running/sprinting. When you
run very rapidly, the oxygen in your muscle cells gets used up extremely quickly.
If you were not to get any more oxygen then the normal aerobic respiration process
would cease. This can happen when the amount of oxygen being supplied in the
blood does not meet the demand for oxygen the muscles need in sprinting. If
there were no other way of respiring without oxygen, then all activity would
come to a stop. However our body’s can respire for a short time without oxygen,
using the process of anaerobic respiration.
We need oxygen to fully break down the glucose (sugar) in our body and release
all the energy stored in it. In anaerobic respiration glucose cannot be fully
broken down, and only a small amount of energy is released, along with a by-product
called Lactic acid:
Glucose ----------------- Lactic acid + Energy
Lactic acid is not good for the body and acts to stop muscle from working if
it builds up to a large enough level. The result of this build up of Lactic
acid is cramp. Because of this anaerobic respiration is used only when necessary.
After a period of anaerobic respiration, there is a period of heavy breathing,
which brings more oxygen into the blood, burning off the lactic acid.
There are many examples of anaerobic exercise that people perform routinely.
Activities including heavy weight lifting, sprinting, or any rapid burst of
hard exercise can be classed as anaerobic exercise. These anaerobic exercises
cannot last long because oxygen is not used for energy the lactic acid produced
contributing to muscle fatigue. A recovery period must be completed before another
anaerobic spell of exercise. This recovery period also allows the muscles to
use oxygen to replenish the energy used during the high intensity exercise.
Other forms of anaerobic processes include anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion
is a biological process that produces a gas principally composed of methane
(CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) that are produced from organic wastes such as
livestock manure.
The process of anaerobic digestion consists of three steps; decomposition (hydrolysis)
of plant or animal matter; the conversion of decomposed matter to organic acids;
acids are converted to methane gas. There are many anaerobic digestion technologies
available for use with agricultural wastes and for treating municipal and industrial
wastewater.
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