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and liver as glycogen (glucose and water). Muscle contraction during anaerobic( resistance training ) can use glycogen directly to form ATP. The process is anaerobic glycolysis, meaning it can use the glucose as energy with little oxygen ( 90% glucose, 5% oxygen and 5% fatty acid ). Our muscles store enough ATP for short periods of muscle contraction, when ATP is exhausted it leads to muscle failure. The rest period between weight training sets allows added ATP to be produced and used for muscle contraction. During early stages of aerobic exercise, ATP is again created mainly from glucose until the heart and lungs provide enough oxygen to the muscles to allow fatty acids to be used to create ATP. So there you have it during resistance training and the beginning stages aerobic training the primary source of fuel is glucose.

This supports my claim that low carb diets and exercise make poor partners. To uncover why, we need to quickly look at the concept behind low carb diets and how they work. Any diet that provides 100 grams or less of carbohydrate daily. This article classifies as low carb diet's. This will quickly deplete the glycogen stores in the muscle and liver. This by itself is testimony that our muscle's primary source of fuel is glucose. Fatty acids stored in the adipose tissue ( fat cells ) are now released into the blood and processed by the liver and some are turned into glucose (gluconegenesis) and some remain fatty acids and both provide ATP for muscle contraction. One of the by products of this process is ketone bodies which can provide energy to brain and nervous system. The problem gluconegenesis (non glucose turned into glucose) provides fuel to the muscle less efficiently than glycogenesis (glucose). The end result is increased muscle fatigue, decreased muscle power, which leads to poor athletic performance.

A recent study performed at the University of Connecticut showed that exercisers who switched from a balanced diet (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) to a low carb diet experience the following drop's in athletic performance. There was a 7 - 9 percent drop in muscle power and 6 percent drop in VO2 max of cardiovascular performance. Another factor to consider is the recuperation of muscle between workouts is decreased on low carb diets. So why would someone go on a low carb diet, especially when exercising? Because the initial weight loss that comes from the glycogen depletion is believed to be fat loss. We have become so focused on weight

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