Science weighs in on muscle fatigue

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cmurphy04722
cmurphy04722 Posts: 254
in Fitness and Exercise
http://www.physorg.com/news188205906.html

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"Dr Sam Marcora, an exercise physiologist at Bangor University, has now disproved this for the first time and proposed an alternative - that it is your perception of effort that limits your endurance performance, not the actual capability of your muscles. He showed that the muscles were still able to achieve the power output required by endurance exercise even when the point of perceived exhaustion had been reached.

This will inevitably lead to new training and coaching techniques, based on this new understanding of the role of perceived effort in endurance performance.

What Marcora has found is that athletes give up endurance exercise, feeling that they are exhausted, before reaching their absolute physiological limit. In fact, immediately after exhaustion, the leg muscles are capable of producing three times the power output required by high-intensity cycling exercise."

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  • AlannaPie
    AlannaPie Posts: 349 Member
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    Go until you can't go any further, and then you're halfway there
  • HonestOmnivore
    HonestOmnivore Posts: 1,356 Member
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    I decided that as a healthy but totally out of shape obese 38 year old, I should be able to handle an intermediate trail at Yosemite National park. So I joined a couple skinny fit friends and we hiked to the base of Nevada Falls. Ok they hiked the first part and waited... and waited... and waited... until I finally showed up. By the time we were going back down the "trail of mist" I had to walk backwards down the slippery steps because my quads were toasted.

    What I learned. When there is no other option other than spending a cold night on a mountain (with bears) - you have far more endurance than you think. I was a mess for about four days but I did get off that mountain that day, and live to tell about it :laugh: I will NEVER forget the old guy with the oxygen tank passing me on my way up.:embarassed:

    I also never off loaded the bottle of wine or three wine glasses (wine doesn't taste as good out of plastic!) - We did drink the wine and eat the smoked salmon and crackers at the base of Nevada Falls (because if you're going to be left on the mountain to die - you'd might as well smell like salmon to those bears!). I still have the empty wine bottle :wink:

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