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Muscle Glycogen Metabolism and High-Intensity Exercise Performance: A Narrative Review
Abstract
Muscle glycogen is the main substrate during high-intensity exercise and large reductions can occur after relatively short durations. Moreover, muscle glycogen is stored heterogeneously and similarly displays a heterogeneous and fiber-type specific depletion pattern with utilization in both fast- and slow-twitch fibers during high-intensity exercise, with a higher degradation rate in the former. Thus, depletion of individual fast- and slow-twitch fibers has been demonstrated despite muscle glycogen at the whole-muscle level only being moderately lowered. In addition, muscle glycogen is stored in specific subcellular compartments, which have been demonstrated to be important for muscle function and should be considered as well as global muscle glycogen availability. In the present review, we discuss the importance of glycogen metabolism for single and intermittent bouts of high-intensity exercise and outline possible underlying mechanisms for a relationship between muscle glycogen and fatigue during these types of exercise. Traditionally this relationship has been attributed to a decreased ATP resynthesis rate due to inadequate substrate availability at the whole-muscle level, but emerging evidence points to a direct coupling between muscle glycogen and steps in the excitation-contraction coupling including altered muscle excitability and calcium kinetics.
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“suggestions that high-intensity performance may be impaired when muscle glycogen drops below 250 -300 mmol · kg 1 dry wt (72)”
From Carbohydrate ingestion during prolonged exercise and net skeletal muscle glycogen utilization: A meta-analysis. (2026) · cites this paper as [72]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Vigh-Larsen, J. F., Ørtenblad, N., Spriet, L. L., Overgaard, K., & Mohr, M.
- Affiliations
- Aarhus University (DK)
- University of Southern Denmark (DK)
- University of Guelph (CA)
- University of the Faroe Islands (FO)
- Corresponding author
- Mohr, Magni
- Venue
- Sports Medicine
- Published
- 2021-04-26
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1855-1874
- ISSN
- 0112-1642 (ISSN-L)
- 1179-2035
- OpenAlex
- W3157691503
- Cited by
- 169
- References
- 209
- Citations by year
- 2026: 30 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 5
- FWCI
- 3.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Sports Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Southern Denmark Research Portal (University of Southern Denmark) (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- The Danish Ministry of Culture (FPK.2016-0054)
- Team Danmark
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Muscle metabolism and nutrition
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology (medical) › Cardiovascular and exercise physiology
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Orthopedics and Sports Medicine › Sports Performance and Training
- Keywords
- muscle glycogen, glycogen metabolism, high-intensity exercise, glycogen depletion, fast-twitch fibers, type I muscle fibers, exercise fatigue, ATP resynthesis, excitation-contraction coupling, muscle excitability, calcium kinetics
- MeSH terms
- Fatigue, Glycogen, Humans, Muscles, Exercise, Muscle, Skeletal
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