Fitness/Diet and Nutrition
The Respiratory System
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We must understand as sports players how things work and what stresses we put our bodies under and why so that we can achieve whatever it is we want to achieve!
The respiratory for instance is a good place to start and plays a much bigger part in our sport than just helping us to breathe in and out. Respiration is the process used in all living things for gaining energy and feeding vital organs all over the body.
When we breathe in we inhale air which is then drawn down into our lungs. When we then breathe out we force this air out of our lungs and back out into the open air. Simple really, except our bodies do a lot more with that air than you think!
The inhaled air is taken down into the lungs and comes into contact with what is known as the ‘alveoli’ inside the lungs. Alveoli are seriously tiny and there are as many as 300 million of them in the lungs. Their main job is to exchange the new gasses in the inhaled air, with the old gasses that need to come out from our blood.
Need to know: Inhale - clean Oxygen in – dirty Carbon Dioxide out - exhale
Even more reason to ensure that the air you are breathing IN, isn’t polluted or dirty in some way (like smoking or fumes) and is the freshest that it can be.