The three metabolic pathways

Crossfit’s Dublins Third Fitness Standard for testing and developing fitness in our athletes

There are three metabolic pathways that provide the energy for all human action. These “metabolic engines” are known as the phosphagenpathway, the glycolytic pathway, and the oxidative pathway.The first, the phosphagen, dominates the highest-powered activities,those that last less than about ten seconds. The second pathway, theglycolytic, dominates moderate-powered activities, those that lastup to several minutes. The third pathway, the oxidative, dominateslow-powered activities, those that last in excess of several minutesTotal fitness, the fitness that CrossFit promotes and develops, requirescompetency and training in each of these three pathways or engines.Balancing the effects of these three pathways largely determines thehow and why of the metabolic conditioning or “cardio” that we do aCrossFit.Favoring one or two to the exclusion of the others and not recognizingthe impact of excessive training in the oxidative pathway are arguablythe two most common faults in fitness training. More on that later.

Info thanks to CrossFit HQ

The three metabolic pathways