One interesting and potentially revolutionary argument is that the mind is actively limiting our maximum potential effort in order to preserve a safety biological status. The limits we encounter during exercise aren’t a consequence of failing muscles they’re imposed in advance by the brain to ensure that we never reach true failure. A higher threshold means that you can sustain a greater intensity for longer times, which is of crucial importance in long-distance endurance competitions. The Lactate Threshold is defined as the maximal effort or intensity that an athlete can maintain for an extended period of time with little or no increase in lactate in the blood. Your muscles’ ability to tolerate high levels of lactic acid-what we would now call anaerobic capacity-is the other key determinant of endurance. Nonetheless, certain athletes are more genetically suited to have lower levels of energy expenditure given a certain speed, and therefore they are better equipped to sustain long-running distances at faster paces. This energy demand can be improved with training and it reduces once you become more accustomed to a higher pace. The more straining a given pace is, the more energy is required to sustain it. The Running Economy is the energy demand for a given velocity. If you want running at 5:00-mile pace to feel easier, you should head out the door and run at 5:00-mile pace-a lot. Without oxygen, your body produces lactate which eventually will limit your maximum performance and endurance limit. When the intensity of the workout becomes too high for your aerobic processes to keep up (from Greek aero - "air" + bios "life"), you reached your VO2Max limit and enter an anaerobic state (from Greek an- "without"). VO2Max is defined as the maximum amount of oxygen you can utilize during exercise. At higher speeds, your legs demand energy at a rate that aerobic processes can’t match, so you have to draw on fast-burning anaerobic (“without oxygen”) energy sources. Your VO2max reflects your aerobic limits. They can also only be trained up to a certain limit that varies based on your genetics and many other circumstances, like altitude, motivation, equipment. Those factors are the main enemies for every runner and athlete in general. The author points to three main variables that define the endurance capabilities of each athlete: VO2Max, running economy, and lactate threshold. However, some factors are common between all disciplines. The preparation required is different for every distance. There exist many different types of running competitions and distances: from the most popular 100m sprint to ultra-marathons that can last days or weeks. The book focuses mainly on the world of running. Those self-imposed mental limits may be holding you back more than you ever thought possible, and many research projects have been carried out to prove this idea.ĪMAZON | GOODREADS The limits of endurance running But there are also other factors that are purely mental. Some of those limits are purely physical: how much effort and strain your muscles are able to sustain, how much dehydration becomes detrimental, the effect of hot temperatures and overheating. Many of those projects aimed to learn how to overcome your endurance limits in order to reach new performance levels. He then describes how those results affect your limits and your maximum potential. He presents the results of many research projects in the field of running and endurance. "Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance" is a non-fiction book, written by Alex Hutchinson, about what factors, both mental and physical, contribute to improving or limiting athletes' endurance.
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