Associated with diaphragmatic electrical activation
When men and women exercise together, women’s stamina deteriorates more rapidly. Why. Studies have found one of the reasons women get tired more easily than men during exercise.
According to a team of researchers at McGill University in Canada, electrical activation of the pectoral muscles that control breathing makes this difference. It is said that electrical activation occurs more actively in the diaphragm (diaphragm) in women than in men, which makes it easier to reach shortness of breath.
This means that women will struggle to keep up with men’s breathing when they exercise at the same intensity as men of their age. This difference is not only confirmed through the gender difference between men and women. The same difference can be seen when comparing people suffering from chronic heart or lung disease to healthy people, young people to older people.
The research team found that the reason for the difference in breathlessness between men and women is related to the electrical activation of the diaphragm, which is the respiratory muscle. explained.
The research team said, “The reason that the electrical activation of the female respiratory muscles is more developed than that of males is a way to overcome the biologically smaller lungs, airways, and respiratory muscles than males.” To conduct this experiment, the research team had 50 healthy adult men and women aged 20-40 years ride an indoor bicycle.
Participants’ cardiovascular, metabolic, ventilatory responses, and diaphragm electromyography (a graph recording current changes according to muscle movement) were measured while the participants were cycling, and the differences between men and women were compared and analyzed. “This study might help heal patients with breathing difficulties and improve athletic performance in the elderly or those suffering from chronic heart disease,” said Dr.
The results of this study (Physiological mechanisms of sex differences in exertional dyspnea: Role of neural respiratory motor drive) were published in the medical journal Experimental Physiology.
