Tag: fatigue

Durability

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. While this blog tends to wander with my mind and interests, it had at its heart the foundation of rigorous physical movement as a part of the path towards enlightenment and some sort of inner peace.

With that in mind, i wanted to talk about the concept that was presented on one of my last zwift workouts. Durability.

Zwift is the virtual cycling platform I use to train. They have curated a very extensive library of training plans and workouts, developed by professional coaches and athletes across multiple cycling and and endurance disciplines.

Each of these curated workouts has some text pop ups periodically throughout the workout. They range from small coaching tips and motivational messages, to full scientific explanations of the training methodology. The latter normally coming in the warmup phase when you aren’t focused on sucking air and trying not to embarrassingly fall off a fixed bike trainer.

As I was spinning my legs, warming up, and getting into the right headspace for a more focused training session, I wasn’t really ready for the very scientific and research based information that was being displayed in fading text bubbles.

The words passed along the screen, and I had enough otherwise unoccupied attention to realize they were important and interesting. I immediately pulled out my phone to search for the fragments of the explanation I could remember.

I found the following research paper, which was obviously the one the coach and designer of the workout was referring to, since he quoted the definition of durability verbatim.

“Therefore, applied exercise physiologists working with endurance athletes would benefit from development of physiological-profiling models that account for shifts in physiological-profiling variables during prolonged exercise and quantify the ‘durability’ of individual athletes, defined as, “the time of onset, and magnitude of deterioration, in physiological-profiling characteristics over time, during prolonged exercise.”

The team from Auckland University argues that much of the information that goes into training plan design and race pacing strategy is based on variables that are measured in a static, and usually rested, environment. Those variables of course change and degrade with time and effort. The time of onset and magnitude of deterioration is important to understand for each athlete in maximizing performance.

The workouts seek to measure or at least help you understand these characteristics in yourself by putting you into a state of fatigue, and then having some sort of repeatable assessment .

A cycling example would be a five minute time trial at the end of designed one hour workout. A running example could use an all out one mile time after a similarly structured one hour workout.

5 min time trial after a deliberately fatiguing effort

How long into a prolonged effort does your performance start to deteriorating? What is the magnitude of that deterioration? Is it linear? Does it change drastically with different perceived levels of exertion? Just how durable are you?

These are important questions. Regardless of your status as an endurance athlete, or an athlete at all. How durable are you mentally? Emotionally?

I can certainly think of more than a few instances with my boys where the ‘time of onset and magnitude of deterioration’ in my emotional profiling characteristics would not be considered durable.

As a triathlete this research fascinates me. I also directly benefit from it since coaches are reading it and using it to design workouts I have access to. I also think the ability to say ‘here defined as’ is magical.

The research team is able to specify the niche in which they wish to work. The set the definitions. They remove the potential for misconception as well as focus the readers attention in the desired direction.

Of course my mind takes the concept and wanders with it. Applying it to fatherhood, to my marriage, to research and writing projects after a long run. All of that is still within the confines of their definition. Here defined as.

Run on a DC Layover

The coaches and exercise physiologists can develop workouts and training plans that improve durability. Increase the time to onset. Reduce the magnitude of deterioration. Maybe even a little of each.

Who wouldn’t like to be a little more physically durable? Who wouldn’t like to be a little more mentally or emotionally durable? I think there is plenty of room for crossover between the two.

I’m by no means suggesting you deliberately exhaust yourself prior to handling a temper tantrum. But the next time it happens, as a parent and an athlete it is a matter of when not if, see it as an opportunity to become more durable.

more work on zwift

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Cowards

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As we move into mid June and into the fourth month of some form of reduced social contact due to COVID-19, I want to talk about fatigue.

In order to facilitate clear exchange of ideas and discussion (and because I had the  importance drilled in to me in AP Chemistry class in high school) I’m a big believer in taxonomy. Fatigue (as it will apply to this post and future discussions on the blog) is a physiological state of reduced physical or mental performance.

First stroller run with my new running buddy

Fatigue can be brought on in a number of different ways.  Since this in large part a fitness blog, fatigue in most of our discussions is brought on by physical exertion.  Touching on parenting and aviation, fatigue can be brought on by disrupted sleep patterns and stress. Fatigue can also be brought on by both too much mental stimulation as in a tough day at the office, but also by too little mental stimulation or a routine day at the office just monitoring the instruments share known as boredom fatigue.

This blog is filled with examples of physical exertion, and while most physical exertion leaves me energized and mentally and emotionally recharged (SerenityThroughSweat).  There are some debilitating days deliberately designed into the training plan, all alliteration aside.

First stroller run with Speedy (his name not my pace, I was fighting my legs the whole way)

As a pilot, I’ve had fatiguing days where lots of things went wrong and I was strained to keep everything together safely. I’ve also had days that were just as fatiguing, where it was smooth sailing but there instruments seemed to lull me to sleep.

One thing is certain, regardless of how fatigue develops and accumulates, it diminishes performance.  “Fatigue makes cowards of us all”, sometimes  attributed to General George Patton, and sometimes to Vince Lombardi, gets to the heart of the matter.

A snapshot of the last 14 days of mobility work on the overhead position

Again, taxonomy is important. Most of the time, coward is a derogatory term used for someone who lacks courage.  In the context of this post, it refers more to someone who lacks the will or ability, to do or endure unpleasant things.  While that is still somewhat on the derogatory spectrum, I think it is less offensive in that form and more of a temporary state of reality that we all find ourselves in from time to time.

Regardless of your profession or your predilection for physical exertion, we are all experiencing various stages of COVID-19 fatigue. Which also means, many of us are already, or are on our way to becoming, cowards.  Before you get defensive, remember this means lacking the will to do or endure unpleasant things.

Getting in some projectile meditation, by far my best 6 consecutive shots

I know I am personally tired of  social distancing, tired of being stuck inside, tired of not being able to do things with friends and family that I otherwise would. I’m saddened by the loss of life, the economic hardship, and the stress that Covid-19 brings.  Since Florida has re opened, it has seen new records three days in a row for new Covid-19 cases.  It seems as though as a state, and in larger part as a society, we have lost the will to endure the unpleasantness required to combat this pandemic.

The good news is, cowardice does not have to be a permanent character trait, but rather can be limited to a temporary state. Regardless of what unpleasantness we may find ourselves unwilling, or unable to endure, there will always be sources from which we can draw strength and bravery, to combat our own fatigue and cowardice. I hope that you have many such sources in your life, and I’m honored if this is one of them.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.