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When the body lacks the necessary oxygen to complete the process of respiration and eliminate the lactic acid, it is said to be in oxygen debt.
Every tissue in your body requires oxygen to thrive or stay alive. This is because oxygen is the driving force in every living creature.
There’s not second don’t need oxygen in your body. That clearly shows how vital oxygen is for our survival.
However, there comes a time when our bodies lack enough oxygen. Though it is readily and easily available, sometimes, due to various conditions, we lack enough oxygen.
It’s not that oxygen isn’t available, but because our bodies cannot inhale enough to keep it functioning normally.
When your body lacks oxygen, it undergoes a process called oxygen debt. Now that we know the terminology let us get into details about it.
We should learn what the phrase means, what leads to it, and the effects it can have on our bodies.
What is Oxygen Debt?
It is a temporary shortage of oxygen in the body tissues that occur after your body has been vigorously active.
When you are active, your body tissues produce a lot of energy. In return, the tissues require much oxygen to keep up with the energy production, but the supply does not match the high demand for oxygen by the tissues.
Therefore, the low supply leads to a deficit of oxygen in the tissues, which results in Oxygen debt. Lactic acid is produced in large amounts when the body is active, and the process requires lots of oxygen.
The deficit makes the tissues use the lactose stored as an alternative to oxygen. This leads to higher demand for oxygen, and that is why sometimes a person collapse.
Remember, all the lactose used to produce energy must be restored; therefore, your body enters the anaerobic respiration process.
After being active, your body tissues remain active and need more oxygen to produce the used lactose.
This explains why you are recommended not to halt at once to keep the high flow of oxygen in the tissues.
After the heavy workout leads to a deficit of oxygen, your body compensates by taking more oxygen through a process known as Extra Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC).
Which activities can lead to oxygen debt?
Various activities can lead to inadequate oxygen in your body. Precisely, any activity that makes your body active or leads to heavy breathing can lead to oxygen debt in your body. Here are some examples.
– Fitness
– Exercise
Though other activities can lead to oxygen deficit, these two are the major ones.
Fitness
Keeping fit can be demanding. It requires strenuous workouts of different styles. In the process, your body requires extra energy to supplement the super active tissues.
This leads to a higher demand for oxygen in the body for the continuous production of energy.
Though the demand for oxygen goes high, your body’s capability to provide the much-needed oxygen is low, leading to a particular deficit after every inhale.
Due to the supply of inadequate oxygen in the tissues, tissues responsible for producing energy end up using lactose stored in the body.
However, the use of lactose does not reduce the deficit of oxygen but balances energy production. Therefore, the deficit accumulates, leading to oxygen debt, which occurs after the workouts.
Exercise
People exercise for different reasons. Some are sportsmen and women, athletes and others for routine.
This means there will be a difference in exercise level and type.
For instance, a runner will not exercise like a footballer.
A long-distance athlete will not exercise the same as a short-distance athlete; therefore, the energy needed during exercise will differ. Also, the muscles of these athletes will respond differently.
However, every person exercising will require energy. Exercises are usually vigorous and take long, leading to two significant changes to your body functionality.
Accumulation of lactate level
Decrease of glycogen in the muscles due to usage of more glucose for respiration
Accumulation of lactate levels produces oxygen debt, while a decrease of glycogen in the muscles leads to muscle fatigue.
After exercising, you can measure your bodily reaction minus lactate. Therefore, your body must remove the lactate acid produced. Blood then takes lactate to the liver where it is either:
– Oxidized to water and carbon dioxide
– Converted to glucose and pyruvate, then to glycogen
When glycogen levels return to normal, two enzymes help in the process: glycogen phosphorylase in the liver and muscle glycogen.
All the processes involved require oxygen. This explains why heart and breathing rates fail to return to normal immediately.
To replace the reserves of oxygen and oxidation of lactate, your body requires more oxygen, referred to as repaying oxygen debt.
Oxygen debt in muscles
For muscles to function, they need Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). Red (slow-twitch) muscle fibers have high mitochondria levels, thus making ATP with oxidative phosphorylation meaning they require high oxygen concentrations to generate the amount of ATP needed by muscle cells.
When your muscles deplete oxygen, two supplemental energies are reserved in the form of anaerobic glycolysis and creatine phosphate.
The phosphatase enzyme mechanism converts adenosine diphosphate adenosine to adenosine triphosphate, known as ATP. But in the practices of athletes, the process can be reversed to create ADP from ATP urgently.
Myoglobin, which muddles oxygen with great affinity, is also present in muscles and continues metabolism when oxygen depletes in the muscles.
On the other hand, white (fast-twitch) muscle fibers contain more diminutive mitochondria; therefore mostly depend on fermentation and glycolysis to produce ATP.
When a person is active, their respiratory and heart rates rise to pump more oxygen to the respiring muscles.
Though the body has adaptations to vigorous activities, the muscles might overwhelm the body’s ability to provide oxygen.
When the body is overwhelmed, the muscle fibers will change into anaerobic metabolism to produce lactic acid, which induces muscle fatigue. That difference between actual and required oxygen becomes the oxygen debt.
After completing the exercise, your body needs to metabolize all the produced lactic acid. Lactic acid is converted into pyruvate and then converted into citric acid. The process requires oxygen which is equivalent to oxygen debt.
Conclusion
Oxygen debt occurs after being vigorously active, leaving your body with less energy than required to return your muscles to normal metabolically.
Anything that can make your heart and respiration rates increase can lead to oxygen debt. Therefore, it is better to familiarize your body with activities moderately to adapt and try to reduce the oxygen debt circumstances.