Anaerobic Respiration

• Anaerobic respiration doesn't use oxygen at all
• "Anaerobic" just means "without oxygen"
• Anaerobic respiration isn't the best way to transfer energy from glucose because it transfers much less energy per glucose molecule than aerobic respiration - just 2 molecules of ATP are produced
• Animals produce lactic acid
• When you do exercises and your body can't supply enough oxygen to your muscles for aerobic respiration - even though your heart rate and breathing rate increases as much as they can - your muscles have to start respiring anaerobically as well.
• In anaerobic respiration, the glucose is only partially broken down, and lactic acid is also produced.
• All animals that respire anaerobically produce lactic acid by the same process
• Equation for anaerobic respiration in animals:

  glucose --> lactic acid
• Lactic acid builds up in muscles, which gets really painful and makes your muscles fatigued; the advantage is that you can keep on using your muscles
• After resorting to anaerobic respiration, when you stop exercising you'll have an oxygen dept; you'll need extra oxygen to break down all the lactic acid that's built up and to allow aerobic respiration to begin again ( you need to keep breathing hard for a while ).