Many talk freely about hormones, but only a handful really know about them, their source, origin and still very few, if at all, have any clue on their function.All my fellow iron warriors, I need to address you that all of us are captives of our hormones. Our very existence and training progress and many bodily functions are totally controlled by our hormones. Hormones are secreted by various glands comprising the endocrine system.

The two types of hormones concerning our interests are steroids and polypeptides. They course through our bodies and eventually act on a target organ. The problem lies with the fact that, we, through our various researches, have only a minute clue about their individual potential and how they collaborate.

Steroidal hormones are a product of cholesterol, produced in the gonads (testis and ovaries) and the cerebral cortex (brain), and the second type the polypeptide hormones are manufactured by various other glands through different combinations of amino acids. The hormones regulate almost all of our bodily functions.

The endocrine system synergises with the nervous system to give the human body a comprehensive benefit. The direct effect of the hormones is a tad bit difficult to understand but the resultant effect is of the greatest concern to all physical culturists.

An analogy in this regard will reveal it all. In a game of carroms, the striker coin coincides the second coin to strike the third coin in the hole. A biochemical example in this regard would be insulin, a hormone released by the beta cells in the islets of Langerhans in our pancreas, elevates cellular uptake of glucose, which, in turn, causes increased muscle glycogen synthesis and hence reduces blood-borne glucose which, again, causes a dip in insulin response.

During steady state activities like marathon running, this reduction in blood glucose and the resultant decrease in insulin production causes an increase in the mobilisation of stored fat. Phew! A lot of complex biochemistry one may say, but, instead, following our logic and reasoning ability we can easily comprehend and conclude that it is the demand that creates supply.

Taking few above-mentioned biochemical facts into consideration, one can easily conclude that workouts must necessarily exert the practitioner, stretching their physical thresholds, and, when the body undergoes this intensity of exercise, the systemic fatigue that accrues demands one to rest amply without which productivity becomes indirectly proportional.

Intensity, as the hard core proponents of this word would define, would be One has not any clue of high intensity exercise if one has not puked after performing one set of one single rep of a barbell bicep curl.

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Hormones, the road to Damascus - Telangana Today