奥运赛艇只能用一个词形容：痛楚。赛艇选手必须战胜身体痛苦才能赢。比赛开始时她们要绷紧肌肉，以达每分钟划45下。期间有些赛艇手会经历肌肉交感神经兴奋。说白一点，就是神经系统感受到肌肉的疲乏，以为身体正在死亡，于是发出警报。
The water might be calm, but these athletes are not. They're about to deal with more physical agony in a few short minutes than many of us will face in a lifetime.
Hi, I'm Dr Greg Wells. There's only one word that can really describe Olympic rowing: Pain. To win, rowers have to transcend their body's suffering. A race begins with muscles straining to do 45 strokes a minute. In the process, some Olympic rowers suffer from muscle sympathetic nerve activation. That's a fancy way of saying that nerves sense how hard muscles are labouring. They think the body's dying, and they send out an alarm.
The response? Stealing blood away from the arms and legs, and giving it to the breathing muscles. Halfway through a race, rowers are starving for air. Each athlete must breathe in sync with their team-mates, and they must wait to breathe with the stroke - that reduces oxygen levels in the blood by 15%. When we work hard, muscles produce carbon dioxide, hydrogen ions and potassium. Too many of these molecules cause metaboreceptors to spark to life. They sense the pain and beg the brain to stop: S.O.S.
But rowers are trained to ignore distress calls. They teach the brain to create fresh electric signals, ordering the muscles to keep working. During the last 500 metres, the pain gets worse. Rowers can suffer dizziness, they hyperventilate, and often collapse at the finish line.
Breathe as a team...Push past the pain...Do it right, and glide to gold!
水面很平静，选手的内心却不然。她们的身体在未来几分钟内承受的痛苦，比我们一辈子所遭遇的还多。
我是维尔斯博士。奥运赛艇只能用一个词形容：痛楚。赛艇选手必须战胜身体痛苦才能赢。比赛开始时她们要绷紧肌肉，以达每分钟划45下。期间有些赛艇手会经历肌肉交感神经兴奋。说白一点，就是神经系统感受到肌肉的疲乏，以为身体正在死亡，于是发出警报。
身体作出反应，从手臂和腿抽走血液*给呼吸肌肉。在比赛中途，赛艇选手会感到缺氧。每位选手的呼吸必须与队友同步，而且必须与划艇动作同步，这会把血液中含氧量降低15%。我们用力时，肌肉产生二氧化碳、氢离子和钾。这些分子含量过多，会激发代谢感受体。它们感受到疼痛，哀求大脑停止：“救命”！
但是赛艇手练就了忽略信号的能力，并教会大脑产生新的电信号，命令肌肉继续工作。到*后500米，疼痛更加难忍，选手可能会感到晕眩。他们换气过度，常会在终点线昏厥。
整个团队同步呼吸，忍受痛楚，做到这些就*在望！
