FATIGUE RESISTANCE DEFEAT THE NEED TO SLOW DOWN

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