Your body’s energy is produced through a process known as cellular respiration: this is where your cells use the nutrients you’ve ingested through food, along with the air you breathe, and transform them into adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, the fuel for the creation of our body’s energy via cellular respiration. For a cell to ‘breathe’ at optimal levels, there are two systems that need to balance each other: the oxidative system and the reductive system.

Gazzy Parman is a black belt Jiu-Jitsu World Champion and Submission Grappler. Amongst her achievements are: winning the World No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu Championship in the women’s lightweight division; becoming the first American female black belt member of the legendary Nova União competition team; and becoming one of the first eight women in the world ever invited to compete at Sheik Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship – the world’s most prestigious submission grappling tournament.

Most athletes are aware of the term ‘cellular respiration’ without really understanding what it is and how important it is to their performance levels. So what exactly does this term mean, and what relevance has it to a runner’s fitness, stamina and explosive power?

Cellular respiration involves the intake and use of oxygen by your body cells in order to generate energy called Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). To understand the process, consider a very common energy source – fire.