SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the so-why-can't-they-take-the-garbage-out dept.
Children have energy levels greater than endurance athletes, scientists find
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Parents run ragged by their children may have suspected it all along.
Children Are As Fit As Endurance Athletes
Children not only have fatigue-resistant muscles, but recover very quickly from high-intensity exercise -- even faster than well-trained adult endurance athletes. This is the finding of new research published in open-access journal Frontiers in Physiology, which compared the energy output and post-exercise recovery rates of young boys, untrained adults and endurance athletes. The research could help develop athletic potential in children as well as improve our understanding of how our bodies change from childhood to adulthood -- including how these processes contribute to the risk of diseases such as diabetes.
"During many physical tasks, children might tire earlier than adults because they have limited cardiovascular capability, tend to adopt less-efficient movement patterns and need to take more steps to move a given distance. Our research shows children have overcome some of these limitations through the development of fatigue-resistant muscles and the ability to recover very quickly from high-intensity exercise," say Sébastien Ratel, Associate Professor in Exercise Physiology who completed this study at the Université Clermont Auvergne, France, and co-author Anthony Blazevich, Professor in Biomechanics at Edith Cowan University, Australia.
Previous research has shown that children do not tire as quickly as untrained adults during physical tasks. Ratel and Blazevich suggested the energy profiles of children could be comparable to endurance athletes, but there was no evidence to prove this until now.
The researchers asked three different groups -- 8-12 year-old boys and adults of two different fitness levels -- to perform cycling tasks. The boys and untrained adults were not participants in regular vigorous physical activity. In contrast the last group, the endurance athletes, were national-level competitors at triathlons or long-distance running and cycling.
Each group was assessed for the body's two different ways of producing energy. The first, aerobic, uses oxygen from the blood. The second, anaerobic, doesn't use oxygen and produces acidosis and lactate (often known by the incorrect term, lactic acid), which may cause muscle fatigue. The participants' heart-rate, oxygen levels and lactate-removal rates were checked after the cycling tasks to see how quickly they recovered.
In all tests, the children outperformed the untrained adults.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday April 25 2018, @04:22PM (1 child)
My two year old can do pull ups on the table, use the refrigerator handles to rock-climb, and loves to run. Kids are still learning about the world and are quite happy to "exercise" (play). You could be fit too, if you ran everywhere all day with no worries about silly things like work. My kid also eats a lot healthier than I do.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday April 25 2018, @05:48PM
Self-moving strength is hardly a fair measure though - since as you scale down weight reduces much faster than strength, being smaller, have a much greater volume to area ratio. At the same proportions half the height means 1/4 the cross-sectional area, and thus roughly 1/4 the muscle strength - but only 1/8th the mass. Hence twice the strength to weight ratio. A toddler, at call it 1/4 the scale of an adult, can reasonably be expected to have 4x the strength-to-weight ratio of an adult - all else being equal. And this study is suggesting that all else is NOT equal.
Sadly that means even a fit adult has to work a lot harder to run everywhere than they did as a child, even before any other advantages of youth are considered.