What is exactly stamina? What happens when it gets trained? Do your lungs get better and more efficient at pumping air?
In: Biology
I’m not a doctor or trainer or anything, but the way I understand stamina is that it basically comes down to how efficiently your body can use oxygen for an extended amount of time. If you use running as an example, the biggest factor that allows you to run for longer periods of time (think marathon versus a sprint) is how well your lungs can break down oxygen and get it into your blood stream so that your leg muscles can keep working without getting fatigued.
You get “winded” when your body is trying to use oxygen faster than you can take it in, which is what causes people to “lose their breath,” essentially trying to replace that lost oxygen as quickly as possible.
Your vo2 max is a large part of it, that’s the percentage of oxygen your body can process out of each breath of air.
If you have more type 1 muscle fibers that also helps, some people are born with more, and are thus more equipped to be endurance athletes.
You can train both of those and see improvements though.
There is some truth to what the other comments claim. However, the most important limiting factor for your body’s ability to use oxygen (VO2 max) is your heart and its ability to pump blood. This is true for everyone except those with lung conditions and elite athletes. On average, we only use 60% of our lungs’ maximum capacity when our heart is maxed out. So, to increase our stamina, we exercise our heart.
When we exercise our heart, it can pump more blood per contraction. Your heart can pump more blood > more oxygenated blood is pumped into the body > your muscles have access to more oxygen > your muscles can maintain a force over a longer time period before producing lactic acid.
It is true that the muscles also get better at using the oxygen (more blood vessels are created, more mitochondria, et cetera), but this is not as significant.
This is a heavily simplified explanation and also has to do with lactic acid and proton clearance by the liver, to name an example.
The blood running through your body carries oxygen to your muscles. When training, your muscles become more efficient and can function with less oxygen. The out of breath feeling when you are running is basically your oxygen supply drying up so your lungs are burning trying to keep up with the demand you’ve put on you muscles. The larger the muscle, the more oxygen required to operate. Like the other person said vo2 max is what it comes down to.
The human body is very adaptable to do what it needs to do most of the time. The problem is that you can’t just “tell” your body to get better. You have to do what you can, which results in a little bit of damage. The body repairs itself plus a little extra for next time. If your body is used to sitting on the couch all day, it will get very good at doing that. If you start exercising, your body gradually gets better at it, creating stamina.
Several things happen when you train stamina.
* Muscles will grow some, and they’ll grow some more blood vessels. Additionally, they’ll hold more oxygen and nutrients. Most of this is hardly visible, but you’d certainly feel it.
* Lung muscles (most importantly the diaphragm, which is basically a funny muscle, but there’s other muscles that contribute to breathing) grow, and get accustomed to the demand.
* The heart might grow some (depending on your age), and it will get accustomed to the demand – essentially,with practice, it’ll learn how to pump more blood.
* The liver is set to build up carbohydrates to release when they’re needed.
* You learn how to use your muscles more efficiently. This includes how to breathe efficiently while exercising.
I’m a lot more of a stamina person than a strength person. I already started with great stamina in my youth, and later extended it to the point where I could walk at a fast pace for a whole day, and the next day, too. Currently, I’m somewhat “rusted”. For example, I won’t start a hundred kilometres hike today. Stamina builds slowly, but it stays a long time, too. Makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.
You could also look at stamina as functional threshold power or or the max amount of lactic acid you system can remove or tolerate over a given period perhaps an hour. Glycogen stores, during exercise feeding and glycogen recovery are also considerations.
You body becomes more efficient at using things like oxygen and energy and also you become more accustomed to doing without. For example, the average person can survive with no brain damage without oxygen for about 5 minutes. Elite level swimmers can go upwards of 20 minutes without oxygen before they start to suffer brain damage.
Your body becomes more efficient and better able to cope without.
This comment section went from “explain like I’m 5” to “explain like I’m a 5th year med student” real quick.
‘Stamina’ really isn’t a medical or scientific term, so there’s no way to answer. It might refer to muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, or a manner of other uses. I would ask a little bit more specific question, tbh.
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