Our houses are connected to the utility company. We used to call it the power company, which was aptly named. They had the power and we drew their power and paid for it in units of time. If we plugged in a coffee pot that drew drew a killowatt and it took a half an hour to perk the coffee, we used a half-kilowat-hour, a term of energy for which we paid at the end of the month. Power times time used equals energy.
The same is true in engineering. A super-capacitor can quickly discharge large amounts of power for discharging a laser but a lithium battery slowly powers cell phones for hours if not days.
In the same way, athletes have developed power-ful muscles and have power to use when running, bicycling and swimming. If they last a couple of hours, they have generated energy from their power (have done work). But athletes specifically train for either short bursts of high power (powerlifting, for which they look huge but can hardly walk) or long low-power endurance races (for which they look like skinny runts). Seldom do you see a muscular athlete doing cardio (they'd get small), or a racer lifting (too much mass to carry).
Which way is healthiest: Both. An athlete lacking power means brittle bones, and an athlete lacking endurance means heart attacks. In this age of specialization, we should worry about the quality of life rather than trophies and T-shirts.
- © 2013 by Willy
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