Exercise Physiology in the World of Science

Exercise science has roots that date all the way back to ancient Greek history. Galen of Pergamon stated that exercise and proper nutrition could aid in the improvement of mental and physical health, aerobic fitness, and muscle strength. As many people age, they become less physically active, and that needs to change. You need more regular exercise, not less. 69% of all Americans are obese. Exercise physiologists have studied the physiological response to all types of physical activity, such as sports and athletic competition. Competition is one reason why exercise physiology is such an important job. Just like today’s times, competition was tough in the ancient Olympic Games. Coaches back then and today, strive to create new exercise regimes to develop the best performance out of athletes. The field has a history of working to help humans run faster and longer, lift heavier objects, and outmaneuver the competition.

Usually, exercise is divided into aerobic or anaerobic exercise. These types of exercises represent two different extremes of the energy systems used. These different exercises depict what kind of adaptations your body will be making. The functional adaptations to anaerobic exercise sometimes oppose those of aerobic exercise. At the same time, both forms of exercise lead to similar increases in mitochondrial abundance and improvements in glycemic control. In addition to the energy systems used, the frequency, intensity, and duration of each session will have a distinct impact on the metabolic and molecular responses of any tissue. Metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity are increasing in the number of diagnoses. According to the 2014 statistics report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 29.1 million americans have diabetes.These diseases pose a great threat on modern society. Most current pharmacological treatments to combat these diseases are inadequate. So, better results come from long-term exercise programs rather than those of drug or insulin therapy. Exercise does keep you fit and helps you lead a healthy lifestyle, there are still a lot of unknowns about our complex biology behind diversity in the adaptive response to these regimes. Different types of methods of exercise work for different types of people. This leads to the identification of molecules, pathways, and new treatments that conclude that the benefits of exercise is to improve insulin levels.

The field of exercise science will always flourish. There are so many different ways this field has helped people to stay healthy and keep their lives on track. In the last 30 years, exercise related research has transitioned from an organ to a subcellular focus very rapidly. Further research will continue to be heavily influenced by molecular biology tools, based on emerging technologies that dissect gene function on a macro scale as well as by the completion of the human genome project. The Human Genome Project is an international research effort to determine the DNA sequence of the entire human genome.80,000 genes compromising humans will completely sequenced. See the chart attached at the end of the essay for the components of the human genome. These successes will drive the fields of functional genomics, and proteomics. Functional genomics is the dissecting of a genes identity and function. While, proteomics is the study of the properties of proteins. Knowing these things, we will outline some of the historic discoveries in the field of exercise physiology and how all past research has worked to shape present day discoveries about the limits of human performance. Also, we will start discuss the current efforts to elucidate the healthy benefits of exercise, and how advances in molecular medicine may bring more personalized approaches to clinical exercise physiology. Many innovators in physical education, such as Dudley Allen Sargent, notable Harvard educator. They were motivated to understand how exercise as a treatment could make the weak strong and well, and also ensure a course of action that could fight diseases. Sargent was not an exercise physiologist, but he was a physical educator. He conducted seminal observational studies using physical examinations, strength assessments, and anthropometric measurements to learn about humans performance. The work Sargent did framed questions related to how individuals vary in size, strength, and development compared to the mean values for the same age and sex. He did this research in an attempt to learn more about the extent of human variation and physical limits of performance. SImple tests like the vertical jump and the 40-yard dash were used for decades to assess power, explosive strength, speed, and agility. Obviously, different types of people will be better at different things. Even with a given body type, exercise training or sedentary living may influence the range of this body type, and will impact the physical exercise performance.

I think the exercise physiology field will be very successful for a very long time. As long as we keep making advances in the different areas of exercise physiology, it will continue to flourish.  

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