eli5: How does the body store power
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The body has a number of energy-storage molecules.
The most immediate ones are glucose and other sugars, which are dissolved in your blood and can be picked up very quickly. Your body doesn’t store much simple glucose at a time, so this supply runs out very quickly under demand, and your body has to replenish it from glycogen in the liver (see the next paragraph).
The next, and largest short-term, store is [glycogen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycogen), a molecule that is built out of a branching bundle of glucose molecules. Glycogen is stored in your muscles and liver to provide extra energy on demand. The glycogen stores in your muscles are enough to support normal exercise, but you can burn through them with very vigorous and sustained exercise relative to your level of fitness (and it takes a little while to recover). Improved glycogen storage in muscles is one reason why regular exercise makes you stronger and able to endure for longer.
The last major form of storage is body fat, which is more compact and is used for long-term energy storage. Fats are harder to produce and break down, so they’re not as immediately available as glucose from glycogen is, but they can store more energy per weight and so they’re used to support storage over months or years. When the body is low on energy for long periods of time, the body breaks those fats down to produce the glucose it needs.
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