Today's NY Times has an article describing research into the causes of muscle fatigue, a phenomenon that is well-known but still poorly understood. The research suggests that "calcium leaks" play a major role in weakening muscle contractions, hastening the physiological and psychological changes we experience as progressive fatigue.
Finding May Solve Riddle of Fatigue in Muscles
The article also suggests that it is possible to design "anti-fatigue" therapies that block calcium leaks. Experimental results on mice seem to prove that its possible to increase the time to exhaustion. Could an anti-fatigue drug be that far off?
And would that be a good thing? The article concludes with these rather ominous paragraphs:
"That idea, 'is sort of amazing,' said Dr. Steven Liggett, a heart-failure researcher at the University of Maryland. Yet, Dr. Liggett said, for athletes 'we have to ask whether it would be prudent to be circumventing this mechanism.'
'Maybe [fatigue] is a protective mechanism,' he said. 'Maybe fatigue is saying that you are getting ready to go into a danger zone. So it is cutting you off. If you could will yourself to run as fast and as long as you could, some people would run until they keeled over and died.'"
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1 comment:
so they're saying lactic acid doesn't cause muscle fatigue? when did that happen?
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