why would your muscles need more food?

Question

Why would your muscle cells need food when they have a lack of oxygen when there is plenty of oxygen present? i wonder....

Answer 1

When exercising heavily, there is not enough oxygen getting to your muscle cells since they have used so much to make ATP through cellular respiration (glycolysis, Kreb's cycle and elctron transport chain).

You can't replace the oxygen fast enough to continue cell resp., so the muscle cells can only make ATP through glycolysis (doesn't require oxygen). The one problem with this is that lavtic acid builds up in the muscle tissue, and your muscles 'burn'.

Your respiration rate remains higher after you exercise heavily in order to replenish oxygen to tissues and get rid of lactic acid.

Answer 2

they need the food to contract and relax, without the food they wont be able to contract and relax