Reply to: What limits exercise during high-intensity aerobic exercise?

Excerpt

We thank Professors Allen and Westerblad (2010) for their interest in our study (Marcora and Staiano 2010a) which is stirring an interesting discussion on what causes exhaustion during intense aerobic exercise. Although the various cardiorespiratory, central and peripheral mechanisms of muscle fatigue are still being debated (McKenna and Hargreaves 2008), most exercise physiologists agree that exhaustion during intense aerobic exercise is caused by muscle fatigue defined as any exercise-induced decrease in maximal voluntary force or power produced by a muscle or muscle group (Taylor and Gandevia 2008). In other words, it is assumed that well-motivated subjects stop intense aerobic exercise when fatigue reduces muscle function to the point (commonly called exhaustion or task failure) that they are no longer able to produce the required power output despite their maximal voluntary effort (Figure 9 in Allen et al. 2008). …