I recently was talking with a coach I work with who recently took the USATF Level 2 coaching school. This coach was taught that additional capillaries are only produced as a result of a hormone that is ONLY released after 30 minutes of exercise. I have read and heard similarly that it takes an hour or more for this benefit. However, neither of these statements make sense to me.
In general, the way I understand it, adaptation occurs as a result of pushing our bodies beyond or outside an equilibrium. Therefore on a long run receptors in the body probably would pick up the fact that there is a traffic jam of oxygen waiting to be delivered to the cell and a hormone would be sent to the brain instructing more capillaries to be built during recovery. My problem is that if this ONLY occurs during long runs that would imply that there is NO LACK OF OXYGEN in the cell at any point over the first 30 minutes REGARDLESS OF THE oxygen consumption within the cell. If that is true, this would imply that an increase in capillaries WOULD HAVE NO BENEFIT for races lasting UNDER 30 minutes (at best).
What I think (based off of no scientific research study or evidence at all) is that the cells can in fact have a lack of oxygen being transported to them due to insufficient capillaries at right around 8-10 minutes of maximum effort at that pace. This would coincide with VO2 max being reached as the limiting factor in that situation would be oxygen getting into the cell (although acid buildup, muscle tears, central governor, heat, mitochondria deficiency/weakness all may also contribute). IF true an increase in capillaries would benefit the runner for races beyond the 10 minute mark.
Can anyone with actual science knowledge comment on these ideas?
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