Good luck to Tymoteusz Witek, who is exhibiting at this years Stripe Young Scientist and Technology Exhibiton.
Tymoteusz has had a keen interest in human biology for a long time now and is also a frequent gym go-er! He was interested in finding a way to use his knowledge of human biology to aid his weightlifting performance. In his research, Tymoteusz has been examining the effect of cooling the muscles and the palms of the hands between sets. Tymoteusz is examining whether the cooling of the muscles increases the amount of reps a person could do compared to an ordinary session! The main contributor to fatigue on the last rep is the overheating of the muscle. This is due to an enzyme in the energy-producing machinery (mitochondria) in the muscle cells that turns off if it experiences too much heat. Without this energy, the muscle fails to do any more reps. Tymoteusz is continuing to test his theory with TY students to see if ice packs can combat this overheating and improve their gym performance.