Human Muscle Fatigue

The Novartis Foundation Series is a popular collection of the proceedings from Novartis Foundation Symposia, in which groups of leading scientists from a range of topics across biology, chemistry and medicine assembled to present papers and discuss results. The Novartis Foundation, originally known as the Ciba Foundation, is well known to scientists and clinicians around the world.

When human muscle fatigues, athletic performance becomes impaired. For those individuals suffering muscle or metabolic diseases the effects of muscle fatigue can make everyday tasks difficult. Understanding the scientific processes responsible for skeletal muscle fatigue is therefore central to the study of the physiology of sport, exercise and health. Written by a team of leading international exercise scientists, this book explores the mechanisms of muscle fatigue and presents a comprehensive survey of current research on this important topic. Examining the wide variety of protocols, assessment methods and exercise models used to study muscle fatigue, the book explores the differential effects of fatigue as influenced by: age gender fitness and training the use of ergogenic aids medical conditions including cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and glycogenosis. Human Muscle Fatigue covers both clinical and applied approaches in sport and exercise physiology and devotes an entire section to the conceptual framework underpinning research in this area, helping readers from a wide range of backgrounds to engage with the topic. Accessible and detailed, this book is a key text for students and practitioners working in exercise and sports science, medicine, physical therapy and health.

This volume describes the current state of our knowledge on the neurobiology of muscle fatigue, with consideration also given to selected integrative cardiorespiratory mechanisms. Our charge to the authors of the various chapters was twofold: to provide a systematic review of the topic that could serve as a balanced reference text for practicing health-care professionals, teaching faculty, and pre-and postdoctoral trainees in the biomedi cal sciences; and to stimulate further experimental and theoretical work on neurobiology. Key issues are addressed in nine interrelated areas: fatigue of single muscle fibers, fatigue at the neuromuscular junction, fatigue of single motor units, metabolic fatigue studied with nuclear magnetic resonance, fatigue of the segmental motor system, fatigue involving suprasegmental mechanisms, the task dependency of fatigue mechanisms, integrative (largely cardiorespiratory) systems issues, and fatigue of adapted systems (due to aging, under-and overuse, and pathophysiology). The product is a volume that provides compre of processes that operate from the forebrain to the contractile proteins.

This volume presents the proceedings of a muscle symposium, which was held as the Fourth Fujihara seminar on October 28 - November 1, 2002, at Hakone, Japan. This volume covers all fields of muscle biology, from molecules to humans. This book provides information about recent progress of muscle research as well as the problems that remain to be investigated. This volume will stimulate muscle investigators to design and perform novel experiments to clarify the mysteries in muscle contraction.

Fatigue is a condition spanning the breadth of human functioning in health and disease and is a central concern in sport and exercise. Even so we are yet to fully understand its causes. One reason for this lack of understanding is that we seldom consider fatigue from an evolutionary perspective - as an adaptation that provided reproductive success. This ground-breaking book outlines the evidence that fatigue is a result of adaptations distinctive to humans. It argues that humans developed adaptations which led to enhanced fatigue resistance compared with other mammals and discusses the implications in the context of exercise, health and performance. Highly illustrated throughout, it covers topics such as defining and measuring fatigue, the emotional aspect of fatigue, how thermoregulation affects the human capacity to resist fatigue, and fatigue in disease. Human Fatigue is essential reading for all exercise scientists as well as graduate and undergraduate students in the broad field of physiology and exercise physiology.