Energy is the food of life and all living things reach for the energy cookie jar to make it through the day. Energy never dies but transforms to suit the needs of its environment. During stair climbing, your body transforms energy from a stored state into an active one to ensure that your body receives the boost that it needs at just the right moment.
Energy Conversion
Your body's capacity for movement is made possible through energy conversion. This conversion finds energy constantly recycling and changing form to fulfill life's requirements. The energy used by a farmer to pull a plow 100 years ago may be the same energy you use to climb a staircase. Energy's main objective is to provide the physical world with the ability to do work. This is achieved through energy's ability to adapt into different useful forms.
Potential Energy
Stair climbing is made possible by the energy your body receives from food sources. The energy contained in fruits, vegetables and grains stem from photosynthesis, a process that allows plants to produce sugar from soaked-up sun rays. This sugar is stored in your body as potential energy and transformed into kinetic -- energy of motion -- during respiration. The proteins and fats in meat and dairy are also stored in your body as potential energy.
Thermal Energy
The term "energy efficiency" is not a concept regularly embraced by your body. In fact, the success rate of converting food into energy occurs less than 5 percent of the time. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says this is due to more energy being needed by your body to regulate temperature. Body temperature naturally rises during exercise as the energy used to power muscles is lost as heat. This heat loss ignites the conversion of kinetic to thermal energy during stair climbing.
Gravitational Energy
Gravitational potential energy is the energy your body stores to overcome the laws of gravity. This energy resides in your height and weight -- taller and heavier people have more stored gravitational energy than those shorter and lighter. Everything that contains matter, from the sun to an automobile to a feather, also contains gravitational potential energy. As you lift your legs and body against gravity during stair climbing, this potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy.
Member Comments