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1-Page Summary of Endure

Overview

The limits of the human body are intertwined with the activity of the brain. There are many factors involved in determining maximal endurance, including environmental, nutritional, physiological and psychological factors. In 1923 scientists Leonard Hill and Hartley Lupton discovered that runners consume more oxygen as they accelerate but only to a point. The maximal oxygen uptake (not intake), known as VO2max was supposedly an objective measure of one’s aerobic limits but much has changed since then.

During World War II, the United States experimented on conscientious objectors by putting them in different conditions. The results were surprising: Regardless of internal and external factors (exhaustion, caloric intake), VO2max remained constant.

Based on the information in this article, it would seem that endurance limits are set in stone. However, athletes and soldiers who push past their physiological limits often survive.

The Limits of Human Endurance

The Brain’s Role in Endurance

A South African scientist believes that it’s the brain and not the heart or lungs that limits human endurance. If this were true, then our hearts would suffer from oxygen starvation as well as our brains.

There are certain parts of the brain that control our muscle fatigue. It’s called the central governor and it sets up a limit for how much work we can do, so we never reach true failure. The brain also determines in advance how much effort our muscles have to exert before they fail. This is why there are hidden reserves in our muscles; no matter how hard you train, you’re not able to access them.

The brain doesn’t just turn on exhaustion when a person’s body is about to break down. Rather, the brain regulates an athlete’s pace so that he or she won’t overheat and die. This regulation occurs without any conscious effort from the athlete. For example, in hot weather, athletes naturally run slower than they would in cooler weather because their brains are regulating their speed as part of anticipatory regulation.

Perceived Exertion

A new model of endurance has been proposed. It’s called the psychobiological model. The traditional model says that muscles get tired as you exercise and eventually, they can’t continue working. The psychobiological model also believes that muscle fatigue is a factor in endurance but it doesn’t say that muscle fatigue leads to an increased perception of effort or difficulty continuing—it says something else comes first: decreased willingness to continue.

If you’re doing something that feels easy, you’ll continue to do it. If it’s hard, you will stop. However, there are ways to make a task feel easier or harder without actually changing the difficulty of the task itself. For example, if you’re offered rewards for finishing a certain task (like money), then you’ll probably finish it faster than before because now completing the task is more important than before.

There are many factors that contribute to how tired you feel, and these include physical cues such as dehydration or a rapid heartbeat. However, it’s not just your body that makes you feel like giving up; there is also a mental component. For example, “My heart is pounding and my muscles hurt; I’d better stop soon,” can be a common thought. Athletes learn to cope with the various feelings of fatigue, which allows them to push themselves harder than most people would believe possible. Of course, their bodies get stronger over time too, but they have learned to mentally endure more as well.

It’s been known for over 100 years that cyclists can ride longer when they’re in a group. It also helps to have friends around you. The basics of the body matter as well, such as runners being told to relax their faces and jaws while running. Of course, tensing muscles unnecessarily will drain energy but frowning is also bad because it means you’re trying hard and trying too hard makes things harder than they need to be. Athletes aren’t thinking “I’m tired” or “This is hard,” they are frowning because they think something is difficult and then because of this thought process, the act of frowning becomes more common among athletes who feel like what they do is difficult which causes them to feel even more tired which leads them to frown even more…