Everything You Know About Fatigue is Wrong

For a long time, it was assumed that fatigue was a muscular phenomenon. It was thought be a set point and once you hit it, you couldn't go any further—like running into a wall. However, more recent research has showed that it's actually much more of mental phenomenon. Our brain shuts us down before our body does, in order to protect us from injury, exhaustion, or even death. (See: Tim Noakes's central governor theory and Samuele Marcora's model of fatigue, both of which we discuss in today's episode.) This presents us with an interesting conundrum: We have to get to know our fatigue extremely well, so that we know how to navigate all the signals it's sending us. Knowing when to ignore your brain's warning signs, and when to heed them, has far-ranging consequences for everything from endurance sports to creative work. So today we're teaching you the steps to help you learn how to dance with your fatigue.

This is from the episode "Everything You Need to Know About Managing Fatigue" from our podcast "excellence, actually," a weekly show hosted by Brad Stulberg, Steve Magness, and Clay Skipper, that gives you the mental and physical tools, practice, habits, and frameworks used by the best in the world in the pursuit of excellence. Subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts!

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