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Understanding Oxygen Consumption Rate During Exercise

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During exercise, your body consumes large amounts of oxygen. In fact, this is part of what helps you to lose weight. The more oxygen your body consumes, the harder that you're working out. It's one reason that you typically lose a lot of weight when you first start working out. Because your body is not accustomed to working out as much, you use a lot of oxygen during the course of your initial workouts. This oxygen is required to feed your muscles and keep them working. As you get into shape and get used to working out, though, your body doesn't require quite as much oxygen as before. Therefore, you have to find new ways to make your workouts more difficult, in order to increase the oxygen consumption rate if you're looking to lose weight. Otherwise, you simply want to be aware of how your oxygen consumption rate works and why your body craves so much oxygen during workouts.

Your Body Needs Oxygen During Exercise

If you have ever worked out, then you know that you breathe pretty heavily during an intense session. You may even gasp for breath as you complete different exercises. Here's how your oxygen consumption rate works: As you work out or perform certain exercises, your body needs to feed your muscles with blood and oxygen in order to keep them functioning properly. This oxygen helps you to keep going during your workouts. As a result, your body requires more oxygen coming in to help your muscles consume it. That's why you breathe heavily during workouts. Your body needs to keep the oxygen coming in. From there, your blood delivers oxygen to your muscles, which sends signals to your brain that allow you to keep exercising.

If You Don't Get Enough Exercise

When you're first working out, you should warm up by stretching and even jogging for a few minutes to get your blood flowing and the oxygen pumping through your body. This is essential to exercising because it prepares your body for a workout. However, if you're in a rush or you just can't wait to get started, you may be tempted to skip the warm up. This prevents your body from getting prepared and can leave you gasping for air because your body isn't ready to send oxygen to your muscles so quickly. If you're not getting enough oxygen to your muscles, you won't be at your best and you may experience muscle failure. It's the reason you should make sure you're breathing properly when you lift weights or run for distance. You need to keep your muscles fueled with oxygen to prevent muscle failure.

Breathing Properly

To make sure you're getting oxygen to your muscles during exercise, maintain a steady breathing pattern. Some people like to breathe in through their nose and out through their mouth. This effectively delivers oxygen to your body and makes sure that you continue breathing throughout your exercise routine. Try it and see how it can make a difference in your oxygen consumption rate during exercise.

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