Reference no: EM133276044

Imagine an athlete comes to an exercise science lab for an aerobic capacity test. At the lab, the athlete will run on a treadmill while indirect calorimetry and EKG are measured by the exercise physiology students. Before running, the athlete is given a few minutes to warm-up. Then, once the test begins, the speed and grade of the treadmill are increased every 2- 3 minutes. This continues until the athlete signals that they can no longer continue. At this point the test is concluded, and the athlete is able to cool-down and then rest. The whole test only takes 10-15 minutes.

Question 1. Why would the exercise science students wait for 2-3 minutes between each time that they increase the exercise intensity when assessing the aerobic system (ie, aerobic capacity) (based on what you know about exercise metabolism, RER, and oxygen consumption)? (ie, why not increase every 10 or 30 or 60 seconds???)

Question 2. Every 2-3 minutes the intensity of the exercise increases. As the intensity of the exercise increases, what fuel substrate will the body use more and what will it use less, and how can this be measured as they collect ventilatory gasses (ie, VO2 and VCO2)?

Question 3. What do you think will be happening to plasma concentrations of norepinephrine and epinephrine of the athlete over the 10-15 minutes that it takes to perform this test?

Question 4. At some point, oxygen consumption no longer increases (ie, plateaus) despite an increasing workload. What is the term used to describe this phenomenon?

Question 5. At the point described in #4 (above), is the electron transport chain still producing ATP (ie, is aerobic metabolism still going)?