Dudes, all these arguments about humans comparing relatively well anaerobically with certain animals aren’t very sound. Sure, there is some material about men outpacing a predator, a horse, a gazelle etc.
But these are superb athlets who’ve trained for years, competing under very strict rules, probably even taking the luxury of a warmup prior to the test while the animal is usually clueless about all this!
This is not what we are looking for.
Has the average mortal a chance of catching a gazelle with his hands or a spear(even taking out “unnatural” modern fatties)? Big no. Hunter /Gatherers always hunt large game in groups, primarily relaying on strategy and tricks.
And endurance hunting isn’t really about jogging, it’s about walking, sometimes for days. Sure, sometimes the party jogs a short distance to instill fear in the prey but ultimately it’s walking.
Anaerobic predators live , compared to us, very short, dangerous lives. Maybe it’s a blessing we’re so weak and soft.
So after reading the responses, I must say, quite a few good posts.
It certainly is interesting why some men like the aforementioned Ultra Marathoneer can display crazy feats of endurance.
Still, I’d say we’re pussys as a species because:
1)he’s a gifted individual
2)he’s devouring large amounts of modern grain based foods, so in other words, couldn’t really sustain himself with this lifestyle. Or: if you train a zoo bear successfully for marathons over the span of 10 years- it wouldn’t say that bears are natural long disntance runners.
3)it’s not healthy
4it’s probably, from an evolutionary standpoint, sheer coincidence that a sweat based cooling system, that is so awesome for endurance hunting, translates also well to log distance running. Same like with a seal, who’s agility is well versed for balancing balls on it’s nose.
[quote]the.israeli wrote:
Best way to settle this is for someone to get Poliquin himself in here and relate to the whole issue in more detail. I think we’re all missing something here - either his statement was somehow misunderstood and he actually meant something else, or he may come here and offer better explanations.[/quote]
C’mon, man… Poliquin is brilliant, but if you can’t figure out that his statements are ahem self-serving, you’re getting the wool pulled over your eyes.
Do you think a cross-country coach would (dis)agree? What about a cross-country coach who specializes in the training of aerobic athletes and has his own line of supplements therein? What do you think he would say?
The beauty of the human organism is its adaptability. Someone earlier said that there are shades of grey; with proper training you can even force adaptations that yield both black and white (anaerobic and aerobic). Both exist, both are prevalent.
Don’t lose sleep over this. There is no right (or wrong) answer.
[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
‘Fairly efficient’? I disagree. Sure, we can train our bodies for specific adaption, but when you look at the true specialists in the animal kingdom, you might see that we are laughably poor at either aerobic or anaerobic activities.
What you might be confusing with the idea that we’re aerobic is oxidative phosphorylation.
It’s a process by which we use Oxygen as the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain, thus our cells use AEROBIC respiration.
Aerobic respiration is superb for metabolism on a regular basis, but with strenuous activity the muscle cells quickly deplete their energy stores (creatine phosphate can extend this period) and must resort to anaerobic respiration, the Cori cycle, and glycolysis. None of which require O2
One of the by products of anaerobic resp. is lactic acid.
Considering how easily lactic acid can build up some times and how quickly (seconds) our muscle cells switch from aerobic to anaerobic.
[quote]Ghost22 wrote:
What you might be confusing with the idea that we’re aerobic is oxidative phosphorylation.
It’s a process by which we use Oxygen as the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain, thus our cells use AEROBIC respiration.
Aerobic respiration is superb for metabolism on a regular basis, but with strenuous activity the muscle cells quickly deplete their energy stores (creatine phosphate can extend this period) and must resort to anaerobic respiration, the Cori cycle, and glycolysis. None of which require O2
One of the by products of anaerobic resp. is lactic acid.
Considering how easily lactic acid can build up some times and how quickly (seconds) our muscle cells switch from aerobic to anaerobic.
I’m going with anaerobic. [/quote]
Seems like you just argued for anaerobic and then sided with aerobic?
I know the biology behind it, and like you pointed out, we can do both.
Seems to me efficiency in either system would vary wildly depending on what type of adaptations that particular person has developed through physiological stressors, i.e. training. No?
[quote]Affliction wrote:
Ghost22 wrote:
Lots of info
Seems like you just argued for anaerobic and then sided with aerobic?
I know the biology behind it, and like you pointed out, we can do both.
Seems to me efficiency in either system would vary wildly depending on what type of adaptations that particular person has developed through physiological stressors, i.e. training. No?[/quote]
Yeah, I realized I made a typo at the end and said “I vote for aerobic.” I changed it.
Training would definitely affect it. But it seems more, at least from my standpoint, like we’re meant to throw the spear. And maybe to chase the animal until it dies, but we’re probably not chasing it down and THEN throwing the spear.