Reference no: EM133319816

This is a generalization of my presentation on how Carbohydrate diets would help the performance of a kickboxer on a metabolic level. Is any of this information incorrect? Would there be any more details to add to these points, would hitting each of these points be sufficient? Thanks for the help.

1. More CHO=Increased glycogen synthesis, ingested CHO is catabolized into glycogen and stored in muscle and liver. Muscle is the main source of glycogen in a kickboxing fight. ?

2. Most of the fuel produced in a kickboxing fight is via the PCr system and Anaerobic glycolysis. The aerobic system is not as useful here but is not unimportant. The Anaerobic pathways are the fastest way of producing energy. ?

3. The bigger amount of CHO ingested, the less worry of fatigue there is due to the fact that glycogen is more abundant. More time can be spent focusing on damaging the opponent and scoring points from the judges, this increases performance. This also discourages the opponent from being offensive as they will have to deal with a higher output of punches and kicks from the fighter on the CHO diet. ?

4. More muscle glycogen due to increased CHO in the diet means there is a decreased amount of blood glucose needed to meet ATP demand. Normally the liver releases glucose into the blood through gluconeogenesis where the blood glucose goes to working muscle in order to fuel contraction upon depletion of muscle glycogen. This means there is more blood glucose available if needed during the match, prolonging fatigue because more energy can be made even if muscle glycogen is gone. ?

5. When it comes to the middle and final rounds of a fight, boxers on CHO diets will see benefits in the fact their muscle and liver glycogen reserves are not yet depleted. This means they can keep up a higher intensity for longer than an opponent on a normal diet, giving them an advantage as the match drags on. The boxer on the CHO diet will be much more active which increases their chance of successful performance. ?

6. Even as the anaerobic pathway can no longer supply enough energy, the aerobic pathway is still helped by a high CHO diet. More CHO means more pyruvate produced through glycolysis allowing more ATP from the aerobic pathway to be produced, this makes aerobic processes such as the Krebs cycle more efficient due to more compounds being available for it. ?

7. Think of the body like a car, a CHO diet allows a bigger gas tank. The boxer has more "turbo" to utilize over the duration of a match, allowing for increased periods of higher intensity resulting in better performance.