FATIGUE RESISTANCE DEFEAT THE NEED TO SLOW DOWN

The best endurance cyclists are those who can stave off fatigue to keep pushing hard hour after hour. But what exactly is fatigue resistance and how is it developed? Dr Mark Burnley investigates

-  Dr Mark Burnley

It is difficult to overstate just how good Anna Kiesenhofer’s performance was to win Olympic gold in the women’s road race. She had to sustain her effort for almost four hours in blistering heat, pursued by the best riders in the world. Part of the reason they failed to catch her was, of course, tactical: everyone seemed to work to their nearest rival’s disadvantage while Kiesenhofer got on with the business of reaching the finish line. That meant being fit enough to sustain the speed to win. But it also meant having the physiological and psychological attributes to avoid slowing down after hours of effort. This aspect of performance is called fatigue resistance, and it does not get as much attention as it deserves.

Fatigue is a difficult concept to pin down because it has several meanings. The fatigue we are considering here is specifically physiological. Neuromuscular fatigue is the phenomenon Kiesenhofer was working against. Simply stated, this is a form of fatigue that is caused by muscle activity and which causes maximal performance (e.g. an all-out sprint) to decline, while being reversible through rest. It isn’t just maximal or hard effort that causes fatigue, of course. Fatigue can occur at any level of exercise. What matters is whether or not that fatigue slows you down. Kiesenhofer’s did not – and with the right training, you can do the same.