ATHLETICS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 285, 17 November 1923, Page 11

ATHLETICS

SECOND WIND. The problem of how athletes acquire second breath was considered recently by’the Soyal Society at the concluding meeting of its session, the subject being brought forward by Professor Pembrey and his colleagues, reports the “Manchester Guardian.” Their conclusion, based on experiments with young men, was that the exercise of running resulted in the acids in the body being increased. The result was laboured breathing and a large excess of carbon dioxide in the cells of the lung. To mett this there was co-opera-tion between the lungs, the heart, the kidneys, and the skin, and when this was effected the athlete secured his second wind. With the arrival of second wind there was a decrease in the activity of the lungs, and it appeared from experiments that immediately on an athlete starting running a message was sent to the kidneys temporarily suspending their activities- The result was that a perfectly healthy man might be accused of suffering from albunfinaria and be refused by an insurance company as a good life when, in fact, he was perfectly sound. Nature saw to it that the mechanism involved was 1 not unduly strained.