Fatigue mechanisms during physical exercise

Resumen

Fatigue can be defined as incapacity to maintain the required power output, with concomitant impairment of exercise performance, and it can be divided into chronic or acute. In acute fatigue a subdivision has been used to delimitate experimental studies. Thus, acute fatigue can be central or peripheral. We began the review process with a search on the Pubmed database, followed by selection of classical and more recent articles. As the fatigue mechanisms are linked to the predominant energy metabolism in the activity, the purpose of this paper was to review the main acute fatigue theories in activities with different metabolic demands. From this literature review, it was possible to infer that important metabolic alterations occurring during exercise, impair normal cellular activities, therefore, decreasing the speed of contraction and as well as energy replenishment. Many of those alterations give information to the central nervous system, limiting the time length of exercise. Theoretically, the elongation of exercise beyond biological limits can cause irreversible damages to the organism.