 Alright, so in the last video we talked a little bit about the energy systems in the body. We have the creatine phosphate system, we have the anaerobic system and we have the aerobic system. Those are the three energy systems of the body. That's how we produce movement. Now, I wanted to touch a little bit more today on the creatine phosphate system and how it relates to running. So, the creatine phosphate system is there to provide us with a lot of energy very quickly. Okay, so it typically is only relevant to sprinters. Okay, 100 meters sprinters, 200 meters, up to even 400 meters, it's relevant. But as soon as you're starting to get into middle and long distances, the creatine phosphate system is really not that relevant. Of course, it does still play a role. Perhaps you want to do a kick at the end of a race. Even a marathon might finish with a battle between first and second and you might have to call upon some of that creatine phosphate in order to just get a fast sprint towards the end. Okay, so it is relevant but it's less relevant for long distance runners. For sprinters though, it is relevant and sprinters definitely want to spend some of their training developing this system. Now, just some details about how it works. So, creatine phosphate is a molecule where the phosphate bond, the bond between the creatine and the phosphate, holds a lot of energy. Okay, a lot of chemical energy. And when that is broken down, that bond, that energy is released. So, in a way, you could see it as creatine phosphate being a storage form of energy. It's stored energy. Now, when the body produces movement, it does so by using the energy molecule called ATP, adenosine triphosphate. Okay, and ATP is actually stored in very minute amounts in the muscle. There's just a little bit of it, just enough to produce a little bit of contraction in the muscle. As soon as that muscle runs out of energy, runs out of ATP, it needs more ATP. It needs more energy. Where does that come from? Well, as I spoke about in the last video, if it has time, if the force production and the contractions are slow enough to produce it by aerobic means or perhaps anaerobic glycolysis, then it'll do that. But if it needs to happen right now in just a few seconds, right, like if you suddenly start sprinting, the body doesn't have time to go through all these steps and get enough oxygen to the cells and etc. to do all that aerobic metabolism. It just needs to go straight through a fast source and that's the creatine phosphate. So, what happens is that the creatine phosphate bond is broken down and the energy in that bond is now used to take ADP and produce ATP. Adenosine diphosphate, two phosphates, becomes now adenosine triphosphate with three phosphates because it's getting one of those phosphate molecules from the creatine phosphate. Okay, so the simple way to put it is creatine phosphate holds the energy. The muscle produces force and breaks down ATP, takes the energy from ATP. Now we're left with ADP, it lost one phosphate, it used the energy of that one phosphate bond. Creatine phosphate donates its phosphate and now the ATP is restored and ready to be used again. So we're recycling ATP essentially. And then creatine phosphate is now used and we're left with just creatine and creatine now needs to be so it's called re-phosphorylation. So through aerobic metabolism now the body will break down fuels like fat and carbohydrate and donate energy to the creatine molecule in order to restore creatine phosphate and that's sort of the cycle. That's why you're breathing heavy even though you sprinted for just 10 seconds and technically it was completely without oxygen, it was anaerobic metabolism going on there, it all came from creatine phosphate. You're still breathing heavy afterwards, well that's because now your aerobic system is ramped up in order to provide fuel and break down fuel to re-phosphorylate, donate those phosphate groups to the creatine in order to replenish creatine phosphate stores. Okay so if you if you don't follow me that's okay it's kind of technical and complex these things but if you watch the video a few times you'll probably catch it and I'm not I'm probably not the best to describe it and I'm not using perfect chemical terms all the time perhaps either but hopefully it'll give you a gist of the whole mechanics and dynamics of of creatine in the body. Hope that makes sense if you have any questions you can post them down below send me a message maybe at the lone trail facebook page or look up my website mgdcoaching it's in the description there's a link if you want coaching and as you can hear it just started raining like crazy outside and my dad is actually out for a run now and I might have to go pick him up because it's there's lightning and thunder and it's totally crazy. Thanks for watching, bye!