How do cellular respiration and breathing relate in reference to a basketball player taking a free throw?

Question

Help! I don't understand this at all. Here is the original statement. (it was too long for the actual question)

"Breathing and cellular respiration are closely related. Describe how they are related in reference to a basketball player taking a free throw."

Answer 1

Breathing is related to cellular respiration in that it provides a mechanism for gas exchange (intake of oxygen and expulsion of carbon dioxide). The intake of oxygen is required for the process of cellular respiration, where oxygen acts as a final electron acceptor in aerobic cell resp.

As to your basketball player, when he bends his legs to take his free throw and he moves his arms (any sort of muscle contraction) this requires ATP, which is in turn generated by cell respiration, which is driven by external respiration (breathing). Thus, without breathing, a basketball player could only generate ATP anaerobically through lactic acid fermentation which could throw off his/her aim. Or more to the point, breathing provides the oxygen that is required for the player to generate ATP through cell respiration in order to move his/her muscles and also to expell carbon dioxide so that it does not build up in the body and impede preformance.

Sorry about the vague answer, the question confuses me as to what they want with the basketball player thrown in there.