Could Fatigue Be An Illusion?

Ache and agony is generally accepted as the price you pay in pursuit of goals and gains. But in deepest Kent, renegade researchers are out to prove that the hurt locker is but an illusion preventing us from giving our all. Men’s Health meets the men breaking down the pain barrier for good

- Jamie Millar

Until recently, fatigue has been understood in largely physiological terms. In the early 20th century, researchers cut the back legs off frogs and electrocuted the discarded limbs. With no circulation to resupply them with oxygen, the legs managed just a couple of twitches before they were swimming in lactic acid. This has been the enduring perception when it comes to endurance exercise: you keep going until your cardiovascular system short-circuits and your muscles fail, then you’re done.

Today, however, this is viewed as a fundamental misperception. According to Professor Samuele Marcora, director of research at the University of Kent’s School of Sport & Exercise Sciences, it isn’t your legs, heart or lungs that pull the plug – it’s your brain. “We always thought muscle fatigue is what limits endurance,” says Marcora. “But there is mounting evidence that this isn’t what makes you stop at all.”

In fact, so Marcora’s theory goes, pain is but a figment of the imagination. By learning to overcome it, elite athletes can eliminate the pain barrier for good, setting records in the process. In the professor’s eyes, muscle fatigue, lactic-acid build up and gasping lungs – of the kind that might leave you or I throwing in the towel – are simply signals contributing to our ‘perception of effort’. They’re messing with our minds. But that could soon change.