Adenosine triphosphate, also referred to as ATP, is nature’s energy store. Every living organism needs ATP energy in order to carry out the processes that maintain life within that organism, including us humans for whom a continuous energy source is essential for our biochemistry, movement of fluids and the involuntary muscular movements exemplified by our heartbeat, respiration and digestion.

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.

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.