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英文字幕：

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!

中文字幕：

水面很平靜，選手的內心卻不然。她們的身體在未來幾分鐘內承受的痛苦，比我們一輩子所遭遇的還多。

我是維爾斯博士。奧運賽艇只能用一個詞形容：痛楚。賽艇選手必須戰勝身體痛苦才能贏。比賽開始時她們要繃緊肌肉，以達每分鐘劃45下。期間有些賽艇手會經歷肌肉交感神經興奮。說白一點，就是神經系統感受到肌肉的疲乏，以為身體正在死亡，于是發出警報。

身體作出反應，從手臂和腿抽走血液供應給呼吸肌肉。在比賽中途，賽艇選手會感到缺氧。每位選手的呼吸必須與隊友同步，而且必須與劃艇動作同步，這會把血液中含氧量降低15%。我們用力時，肌肉產生二氧化碳、氫離子和鉀。這些分子含量過多，會激發代謝感受體。它們感受到疼痛，哀求大腦停止：“救命”！

但是賽艇手練就了忽略信號的能力，并教會大腦產生新的電信號，命令肌肉繼續工作。到最后500米，疼痛更加難忍，選手可能會感到暈眩。他們換氣過度，常會在終點線昏厥。

整個團隊同步呼吸，忍受痛楚，做到這些就金牌在望！

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（Video provided by GE 編輯：Julie）