You often hear of athletes or sports persons getting a “second wind”, how is this?
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A second wind in sports terms just refers to the athlete increasing their performance over its previous levels.
Why will vary from situation to situation, but recovering from an adrenaline dump is a likely mechanism in a lot of situations.
Basically the athlete experiences an acute surge of adrenaline early, and this lets them push themselves. When that adrenaline wears off, the body becomes lethargic and “tired”, causing performance to drop. Over time the body recovers from this, allowing the athlete to increase their performance again.
There are other similar (but less extreme) use-depletion-recovery cycles, such as ATP in muscles which are also explained by the body using a limited resource, no longer having it, and then recovering it allowing for an increase in performance over the depleted state.
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