Will an athlete who runs for an hour at moderate pace and is not tired at the end burn more calories than an out of shape person who runs for an hour a way shorter distance but is exhausted at the end?
Assuming both have the same weight and such
What I want to know basically is if your body gets stronger will it need less energy to perform the same amount of work?
In: 1708
You ask a complicated question.
The key points to me are: *”an athlete who runs for an hour”* versus *”out of shape person who runs for an hour”*.
I’ll ignore the comments about “energy” and “work”, because they are loaded depending on your background. For example, if you’re doing a physics math problem running around the block has zero net work because you’re back where you started.
Body efficiency and physical health are major factors. Even if the two people were of similar body weight, the athlete who is strong and in shape will have strong muscles and high body efficiency if they’re a regular runner. Their body is used to the exercise. Their heart works less hard and more efficiently, their muscles are already toned and strong and work more efficiently, they need to breathe less hard, their body won’t heat as much and need to be cooled less, and so on. The out of shape person likely has weak muscles that are out of tone, and their body is not used to the exercise. Their heart must pump harder, their muscles strain more, their breathing will be more labored, all requiring more effort even furthering a core body temperature rise that needs to be cooled, and more.
Because the two ran a different distance your answer is hard to answer. If both decided to run across the same field at about the same time, for the toned athlete it is a short jog, for the couch potato it is a hard run, and the athlete will burn fewer calories both in the doing of it and the recovery of it.
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