Physiological Responses to Exercise

A study guide to the physiological responses that occur in the body during exercise. The book adopts a different stance from the usual one of assuming exercise to be a disturbance of the normal body state by seeing exercise as part of its normal functioning pattern.

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The way in which the body responds to the challenge of exercise is a subject which interests many people including students of medicine, physiology, biochemistry and sports science. The usual approach to exercise physiology is to regard exercise as causing a disturbance to the normal physiology of the body's systems. This book breaks with this traditional approach and regards exercise as part of the normal function of the human body. All exercise requires involvement of skeletal muscle. This text describes the structure and function of muscle and discusses the responses of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems to exercise, and the metabolic processes that make energy available to the muscles in different types of exercise. The adaptations that occur when repeated exercise is carried out are explored, and current knowledge concerning some of the factors that modify the normal responses to exercise, including nutritional and environmental factors as well as the effects of sex and age, are reviewed.