Ever Had to Tap From Bad Cardio?
By Bill Thomas
We’ve all been there - a couple of rounds into training and suddenly you’re so tired you can’t even breathe. And if you’ve ever had to tap out before from bad cardio, you know it’s pretty embarrassing! (Not that I would know from personal experience, just something I heard from a friend.)
So why is it that 5 or 10 minutes after dragging your sorry carcass off the mat you can roll again? How much of that feeling of being utterly exhausted is physical, and how much is in your mind?
South African researcher Tim Noakes has a theory about fatigue that’s been gaining traction in the scientific community the last few years. He believes that your mind houses a ‘central governor’ that monitors a multitude of physiological signals like core temperature, blood oxygen levels, muscle activity, and other important factors. If the signals start to indicate you’re in danger of damaging your body, the governor limits the amount of muscle fiber you can recruit for your activity.
I first learned about muscle fiber recruitment when I had surgery to reconstruct my ACL. Even if you can squat hundreds of pounds with no trouble, after surgery you’ll have trouble doing a single body weight squat. You literally can’t lift the weight of your body using the damaged leg. After a few weeks of therapy though, you’ll be back to a significant percentage of your strength. It’s not that you got weaker and then stronger – the trauma from the surgery limits your ability to recruit a high percentage of your available muscle fibers. Your body does this as a protective measure after surgery, and it appears the same effect is in place when you are so exhausted you have trouble moving on the mat. Read Full Article Here
|
