The Importance of ‘Durability’ in the Physiological Profiling of Endurance Athletes

Abstract

Profiling physiological attributes is an important role for applied exercise physiologists working with endurance athletes. These attributes are typically assessed in well-rested athletes. However, as has been demonstrated in the literature and supported by field data presented here, the attributes measured during routine physiological-profiling assessments are not static, but change over time during prolonged exercise. If not accounted for, shifts in these physiological attributes during prolonged exercise have implications for the accuracy of their use in intensity regulation during prolonged training sessions or competitions, quantifying training adaptations, training-load programming and monitoring, and the prediction of exercise performance. In this review, we argue that current models used in the routine physiological profiling of endurance athletes do not account for these shifts. Therefore, applied exercise physiologists working with endurance athletes would benefit from development of physiological-profiling models that account for shifts in physiological-profiling variables during prolonged exercise and quantify the 'durability' of individual athletes, here defined as the time of onset and magnitude of deterioration in physiological-profiling characteristics over time during prolonged exercise. We propose directions for future research and applied practice that may enable better understanding of athlete durability.

Menthol Mouth Rinsing Maintains Relative Power Production during Three-Minute Maximal Cycling Performance in the Heat Compared to Cold Water and Placebo Rinsing

“…However, repeated maximal performance (of similar durations) is a determinant of success in several individual and team sports formats, which may require athletes to contest a heat and a final, or multiple rounds of competition in one day e.g., athletics, cycling or rugby sevens. Therefore, a proposed extension to the line of inquiry established by the present work is that of either or both athlete durability (as per Maunder et al [ 70 ]) and repeatability, where athletes’ decay in performance is assessed during prolonged exercise or with and without sufficient recovery between trials, respectively.…”

“…Intertest reliability is an important determinant of assessing change within an athlete as a result of a nutritional or training intervention, with pacing and performance levels being pertinent factors that are documented to influence three-minute all-out test performance [ 40 , 69 , 70 ]. Average power and end power obtained during a three-minute all-out test have been shown to be reliable between repeated trials [ 48 , 49 ], hence our focus on these metrics as performance thresholds for indicating meaningful change between interventions, as per Figure 2 .…”

Exceptional Performance in Competitive Ski Mountaineering: An Inertial Sensor Case Study

“…Athlete #1 had a baseline peak oxygen uptake during incremental running on a treadmill until exhaustion of 80 ml/min/kg, which can be considered rather good and comparable to that reported for endurance athletes, but not exceptional. A major determinant of endurance performance is not only peak oxygen uptake, but also the fraction that can be maintained for a prolonged time (Maunder et al, 2021 ). Athlete #1 was able to maintain 85% of his altitude adjusted HRmax, and presumably also a large fraction of his altitude adjusted aerobic power, throughout the race, even though some heart rate drift probably occurred (Mattson et al, 2011 ).…”

Exercise Intensity and Pacing Pattern During a Cross-Country Olympic Mountain Bike Race

“…This indicates that elements besides rider-density are at work; likely a fatigue component, as similar tendencies have been reported in earlier studies ( Granier et al, 2018 ; Hays et al, 2018 ; Viana et al, 2018 ). Exercise assessment models, such as CP, have been proposed to drift during prolonged exercise and thereby lead to inaccuracies when applied to prolonged durations ( Maunder et al, 2021 ). While little to no change in calculated CP after 80-min heavy intensity exercise has been reported ( Clark et al, 2019a ), continuous exercise approaching 2 h has been shown to be detrimental to both CP and W ', implying a fatigue component unaccounted for by the current CP calculations ( Clark et al, 2018 , 2019a , b ).…”

“…Ultimately, the aggressive initial laps coupled with frequent high-intensity segments presented by the track led to the positive pacing observed in this study, hindering sufficient recovery between high-intensity bouts. However, the precise fatigue, recovery and durability mechanics that drive the decline are still not adequately described ( Clark et al, 2019a , b ; Maunder et al, 2021 ).…”