What this all amounts to is you “hitting the wall.” You may find yourself unable to complete your final set or run those last few miles. Peripheral fatigue will leave you with a loss of strength and power due to its direct effect on the muscle. Central fatigue will leave you with a lack of coordination and decreased MU firing which equals decreased strength.
What can help fight Fatigue?
Exercise
Exercise is the best medicine. Although completely beating fatigue is impossible, training to your fatigue point, then pressing slowly past it, can allow you to work harder and longer. For example, if you are an aspiring MMA fighter needing to make it through several five minute rounds then you need to train to exhaustion. This specific type of training will force endurance adaptation during your exercise.
Food
Next, would be food. Because fatigue and nutrition are intimately related, maintaining an adequate supply of good carbohydrates in your diet is going to be the key in staving off fatigue. Remember, once you burn through your energy stores, it leads to a cascade of strength, power loss, and mental fatigue. Your brain is powered by glucose (broken down form of carbohydrates). So the depletion in energy results in an increase in mental fatigue. Recommendation? Carb up before a workout.
Supplementation
Staying power has been in the eye of both the fitness and sport world for a long time. Supplements have been designed to help you get beyond when hitting the wall in a number of ways.
Some specifics on supplements after the jump…