Physics
Work, Energy, and Energy Resources
Work, Energy, and Power in Humans
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
Explain the human body’s consumption of energy when
at rest vs. when engaged in activities that do useful
work.
Calculate the conversion of chemical energy in food
into useful work.
Energy Conversion in Humans
Our own bodies, like all living or-
ganisms, are energy conversion
machines. Conservation of en-
ergy implies that the chemical en-
ergy stored in food is converted
into work, thermal energy, and/or
stored as chemical energy in fatty
tissue. (See Figure 1.) The fraction
Figure 1. Energy consumed by
going into each form depends humans is converted to work,
both on how much we eat and on thermal energy, and stored fat. By
far the largest fraction goes to
our level of physical activity. If we thermal energy, although the
eat more than is needed to do fraction varies depending on the
type of physical activity.
work and stay warm, the remain-
der goes into body fat.
Power Consumed at Rest
The rate at which the body uses food energy to sustain life and to do
different activities is called the metabolic rate. The total energy conver-
sion rate of a person at rest is called the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and
is divided among various systems in the body, as shown in Table 1. The
largest fraction goes to the liver and spleen, with the brain coming next.
Of course, during vigorous exercise, the energy consumption of the
skeletal muscles and heart increase markedly. About 75% of the calories
burned in a day go into these basic functions. The BMR is a function of
age, gender, total body weight, and amount of muscle mass (which burns
more calories than body fat). Athletes have a greater BMR due to this
last factor.
Table 1. Basal Metabolic Rates (BMR)
Oxygen
Power consumed Percent of
Organ consumption
at rest (W) BMR
(mL/min)
Liver &
23 67 27
spleen
Brain 16 47 19
Skeletal
15 45 18
muscle
Kidney 9 26 10
Heart 6 17 7
Other 16 48 19
Totals 85 W 250 mL/min 100%
Energy consumption is directly proportional to oxygen consumption be-
cause the digestive process is basically one of oxidizing food. We can
measure the energy people use during various activities by measuring
their oxygen use. (See Figure 2.) Approximately 20 kJ of energy are pro-
duced for each liter of oxygen consumed, independent of the type of
food. Table 2 shows energy and oxygen consumption rates (power ex-
pended) for a variety of activities.
Power of Doing Useful Work
Work done by a person is sometimes called useful work, which is work
done on the outside world, such as lifting weights. Useful work requires
a force exerted through a distance on the outside world, and so it ex-
cludes internal work, such as that done by the heart when pumping
blood. Useful work does include that done in climbing stairs or accelerat-
ing to a full run, because these are accomplished by exerting forces on
the outside world. Forces exerted by the body are nonconservative, so
that they can change the mechanical energy (KE + PE) of the system
worked upon, and this is often the goal. A baseball player throwing a
ball, for example, increases both the ball’s kinetic and potential energy.
If a person needs more energy than they consume, such as when doing
vigorous work, the body must draw upon the chemical energy stored in
fat. So exercise can be helpful in losing fat. However, the amount of exer-
cise needed to produce a loss in fat, or to burn off extra calories con-
sumed that day, can be large, as Example 1 illustrates.
EXAMPLE 1. CALCULATING WEIGHT LOSS FROM
EXERCISING
If a person who normally requires an average of 12,000 kJ
(3000 kcal) of food energy per day consumes 13,000 kJ per
day, he will steadily gain weight. How much bicycling per day
is required to work off this extra 1000 kJ?
Solution
Table 2 states that 400 W are used when cycling at a moder-
ate speed. The time required to work off 1000 kJ at this rate is
then
energy 1000 kJ
Time = = = 2500 s = 42 min
energy 400 W
( )
time
Discussion
If this person uses more energy than he or she consumes, the
person’s body will obtain the needed energy by metabolizing
body fat. If the person uses 13,000 kJ but consumes only
12,000 kJ, then the amount of fat loss will be
1.0 g fat
Fat loss = (1000 kJ) ( ) = 26 g
39 kJ
,
assuming the energy content of fat to be 39 kJ/g.
Figure 2. A pulse oxymeter is an apparatus that measures the amount of
oxygen in blood. Oxymeters can be used to determine a person’s metabolic
rate, which is the rate at which food energy is converted to another form.
Such measurements can indicate the level of athletic conditioning as well as
certain medical problems. (credit: UusiAjaja, Wikimedia Commons)
Table 2. Energy and Oxygen Consumption Rates[1] (Power)
Energy
Oxygen consumption in
Activity consumption in
liters O2/min
watts
Sleeping 83 0.24
Sitting at rest 120 0.34
Standing relaxed 125 0.36
Sitting in class 210 0.60
Walking (5 km/h) 280 0.80
Cycling (13–18
400 1.14
km/h)
Shivering 425 1.21
Playing tennis 440 1.26
Swimming
475 1.36
breaststroke
Ice skating (14.5
545 1.56
km/h)
Climbing stairs
685 1.96
(116/min)
Cycling (21 km/h) 700 2.00
Running cross-
740 2.12
country
Playing basketball 800 2.28
Cycling,
1855 5.30
professional racer
Sprinting 2415 6.90
All bodily functions, from thinking to lifting weights, require energy. (See
Figure 3.) The many small muscle actions accompanying all quiet activity,
from sleeping to head scratching, ultimately become thermal energy, as
do less visible muscle actions by the heart, lungs, and digestive tract.
Shivering, in fact, is an involuntary response to low body temperature
that pits muscles against one another to produce thermal energy in the
body (and do no work). The kid-
neys and liver consume a surpris-
ing amount of energy, but the
biggest surprise of all it that a full
25% of all energy consumed by
the body is used to maintain elec-
trical potentials in all living cells.
(Nerve cells use this electrical po-
tential in nerve impulses.) This
bioelectrical energy ultimately
becomes mostly thermal energy,
but some is utilized to power
chemical processes such as in Figure 3. This fMRI scan shows an
increased level of energy
the kidneys and liver, and in fat consumption in the vision center of
production. the brain. Here, the patient was
being asked to recognize faces.
(credit: NIH via Wikimedia
Commons)
Section Summary
The human body converts energy stored in food into work, thermal
energy, and/or chemical energy that is stored in fatty tissue.
The rate at which the body uses food energy to sustain life and to
do different activities is called the metabolic rate, and the corre-
sponding rate when at rest is called the basal metabolic rate (BMR)
The energy included in the basal metabolic rate is divided among
various systems in the body, with the largest fraction going to the
liver and spleen, and the brain coming next.
About 75% of food calories are used to sustain basic body func-
tions included in the basal metabolic rate.
The energy consumption of people during various activities can be
determined by measuring their oxygen use, because the digestive
process is basically one of oxidizing food.
CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS
1. Explain why it is easier to climb a mountain on a zigzag
path rather than one straight up the side. Is your in-
crease in gravitational potential energy the same in
both cases? Is your energy consumption the same in
both?
2. Do you do work on the outside world when you rub
your hands together to warm them? What is the effi-
ciency of this activity?
3. Shivering is an involuntary response to lowered body
temperature. What is the efficiency of the body when
shivering, and is this a desirable value?
4. Discuss the relative effectiveness of dieting and exer-
cise in losing weight, noting that most athletic activities
consume food energy at a rate of 400 to 500 W, while a
single cup of yogurt can contain 1360 kJ (325 kcal).
Specifically, is it likely that exercise alone will be suffi-
cient to lose weight? You may wish to consider that reg-
ular exercise may increase the metabolic rate, whereas
protracted dieting may reduce it.
PROBLEMS & EXERCISES
1. (a) How long can you rapidly climb stairs (116/min) on the
93.0 kcal of energy in a 10.0-g pat of butter? (b) How
many flights is this if each flight has 16 stairs?
2. (a) What is the power output in watts and horsepower of
a 70.0-kg sprinter who accelerates from rest to 10.0 m/s
in 3.00 s? (b) Considering the amount of power gener-
ated, do you think a well-trained athlete could do this
repetitively for long periods of time?
3. Calculate the power output in watts and horsepower of
a shot-putter who takes 1.20 s to accelerate the 7.27-kg
shot from rest to 14.0 m/s, while raising it 0.800 m. (Do
not include the power produced to accelerate his body.)
Figure 4. Shot putter at the Dornoch Highland
Gathering in 2007. (credit: John Haslam, Flickr)
4. (a) What is the efficiency of an out-of-condition profes-
sor who does 2.10 × 105 J of useful work while metabo-
lizing 500 kcal of food energy? (b) How many food calo-
ries would a well-conditioned athlete metabolize in do-
ing the same work with an efficiency of 20%?
5. Energy that is not utilized for work or heat transfer is
converted to the chemical energy of body fat containing
about 39 kJ/g. How many grams of fat will you gain if
you eat 10,000 kJ (about 2500 kcal) one day and do
nothing but sit relaxed for 16.0 h and sleep for the other
8.00 h? Use data from Table 2 for the energy consump-
tion rates of these activities.
6. Using data from Table 2, calculate the daily energy
needs of a person who sleeps for 7.00 h, walks for 2.00
h, attends classes for 4.00 h, cycles for 2.00 h, sits re-
laxed for 3.00 h, and studies for 6.00 h. (Studying con-
sumes energy at the same rate as sitting in class.)
7. What is the efficiency of a subject on a treadmill who
puts out work at the rate of 100 W while consuming oxy-
gen at the rate of 2.00 L/min? (Hint: See Table 2.)
8. Shoveling snow can be extremely taxing because the
arms have such a low efficiency in this activity. Suppose
a person shoveling a footpath metabolizes food at the
rate of 800 W. (a) What is her useful power output? (b)
How long will it take her to lift 3000 kg of snow 1.20 m?
(This could be the amount of heavy snow on 20 m of
footpath.) (c) How much waste heat transfer in kilojoules
will she generate in the process?
9. Very large forces are produced in joints when a person
jumps from some height to the ground. (a) Calculate the
magnitude of the force produced if an 80.0-kg person
jumps from a 0.600–m-high ledge and lands stiffly,
compressing joint material 1.50 cm as a result. (Be cer-
tain to include the weight of the person.) (b) In practice
the knees bend almost involuntarily to help extend the
distance over which you stop. Calculate the magnitude
of the force produced if the stopping distance is 0.300
m. (c) Compare both forces with the weight of the
person.
10. Jogging on hard surfaces with insufficiently padded
shoes produces large forces in the feet and legs. (a)
Calculate the magnitude of the force needed to stop
the downward motion of a jogger’s leg, if his leg has a
mass of 13.0 kg, a speed of 6.00 m/s, and stops in a dis-
tance of 1.50 cm. (Be certain to include the weight of
the 75.0-kg jogger’s body.) (b) Compare this force with
the weight of the jogger.
11. (a) Calculate the energy in kJ used by a 55.0-kg woman
who does 50 deep knee bends in which her center of
mass is lowered and raised 0.400 m. (She does work in
both directions.) You may assume her efficiency is 20%.
(b) What is the average power consumption rate in
watts if she does this in 3.00 min?
12. Kanellos Kanellopoulos flew 119 km from Crete to
Santorini, Greece, on April 23, 1988, in the Daedalus 88,
an aircraft powered by a bicycle-type drive mechanism
(see Figure 5). His useful power output for the 234-min
trip was about 350 W. Using the efficiency for cycling
from Table 2 in Conservation of Energy (which is 20%),
calculate the food energy in kilojoules he metabolized
during the flight.
Figure 5. The Daedalus 88 in flight. (credit: NASA
photo by Beasley)
13. The swimmer shown in Figure 6 exerts an average hori-
zontal backward force of 80.0 N with his arm during
each 1.80 m long stroke. (a) What is his work output in
each stroke? (b) Calculate the power output of his arms
if he does 120 strokes per minute.
Figure 6.
14. Mountain climbers carry bottled oxygen when at very
high altitudes. (a) Assuming that a mountain climber
uses oxygen at twice the rate for climbing 116 stairs per
minute (because of low air temperature and winds), cal-
culate how many liters of oxygen a climber would need
for 10.0 h of climbing. (These are liters at sea level.)
Note that only 40% of the inhaled oxygen is utilized; the
rest is exhaled. (b) How much useful work does the
climber do if he and his equipment have a mass of 90.0
kg and he gains 1000 m of altitude? (c) What is his effi-
ciency for the 10.0-h climb?
15. The awe-inspiring Great Pyramid of Cheops was built
more than 4500 years ago. Its square base, originally
230 m on a side, covered 13.1 acres, and it was 146 m
high, with a mass of about 7 × 109 kg. (The pyramid’s di-
mensions are slightly different today due to quarrying
and some sagging.) Historians estimate that 20,000
workers spent 20 years to construct it, working 12-hour
days, 330 days per year. (a) Calculate the gravitational
potential energy stored in the pyramid, given its center
of mass is at one-fourth its height. (b) Only a fraction of
the workers lifted blocks; most were involved in support
services such as building ramps (see Figure 7), bringing
food and water, and hauling blocks to the site. Calculate
the efficiency of the workers who did the lifting, assum-
ing there were 1000 of them and they consumed food
energy at the rate of 300 kcal/h. What does your an-
swer imply about how much of their work went into
block-lifting, versus how much work went into friction
and lifting and lowering their own bodies? (c) Calculate
the mass of food that had to be supplied each day, as-
suming that the average worker required 3600 kcal per
day and that their diet was 5% protein, 60% carbohy-
drate, and 35% fat. (These proportions neglect the mass
of bulk and nondigestible materials consumed.)
Figure 7. Ancient pyramids were
probably constructed using ramps as
simple machines. (credit: Franck Monnier,
Wikimedia Commons)
16. (a) How long can you play tennis on the 800 kJ (about
200 kcal) of energy in a candy bar? (b) Does this seem
like a long time? Discuss why exercise is necessary but
may not be sufficient to cause a person to lose weight.
Glossary
metabolic rate: the rate at which the body uses food energy to sustain
life and to do different activities
basal metabolic rate: the total energy conversion rate of a person at
rest
useful work: work done on an external system
SELECTED SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS & EXERCISES
1. (a) 9.5 min; (b) 69 flights of stairs
3. 641 W, 0.860 hp
5. 31 g
7. 14.3%
9. (a) 3.21 × 104 N; (b) 2.35 × 103 N; (c) Ratio of net force to
weight of person is 41.0 in part (a); 3.00 in part (b)
11. (a) 108 kJ; (b) 599 W
13. (a) 144 J; (b) 288 W
15. (a) 2.50 × 1012 J; (b) 2.52%; (c) 1.4 × 104 kg (14 metric tons)
1. for an average 76-kg male ↵
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