Cross Country Skiing Case Study

Physiology of Exercise of Competitive Cross-Country Skiing

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Physiology of exercise of Competitive cross-country skiing

Recovery mechanism

Competitive cross-country skiing is a strenuous endurance sport in which efficiency and energy delivery are deemed very important to achieve a high performance. Recently, shorter sprint competitions have been adopted; skiers are subjected to time-trial qualification race with three knockout heats. The heats take approximately 3-4 minutes and 20 minutes between the heats. Therefore, the ability of the skiers to reproduce subsequent technique, high efficiency, and energy is very imperative in the sport.

Sessions of intense competition produce anabolic mechanism and chronic stress,

Exercise hyperemia occurs during heavy skiing and vigorous muscular excerises; it refers to the rise in blood flow to the skeletal muscles (Bergh & Forsberg, 2008). The activity occurs as a consequence of cell metabolism and is therefore known as functional or active hyperemia. It implies an increase in blood flow to al the body organs that experience a heightened parenchymal cell

Therefore, the body requires higher amount oxygen to produce more ATP. Without enough oxygen, the level of lactic acid rises in the muscles. Because many muscle groups are involved in skiing, the total energy consumption it implies that the body requires the highest level of aerobic capacity (Rusko, 2008). The increased oxygen requirement implies that the body must derive oxygen from other sources and that recovery must take place in such instances.

Impact of low temperature on muscle power

The reduced skin temperature cause relative levels of body cooling, which lowers the muscle temperatures. Consequently, the muscles weaken and result in impairment of the neuro-muscular function, which cause most of the skiing injuries. In addition, the drop in temperature can result in cold injury. Cold injury occurs in the exposed body parts like the feet, hands, and face, due to formation of ice crystals, freezing of tissues, or vasoconstriction which limits blood flow to the exposed body part, which results in ischematic cold injury.

Local injury to the eyes is causing blurred vision and corneal edema results due to competing in the low temperatures. The main cause of the injury to the cornea is the incomplete eyelid closures and the damaged blinking reflex. Consequently, the thin cornea film that covers and protects it is not kept in