Muscle Fatigue

IK-503: COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND THE INDIAN THOUGHT SYSTEM

By: Dr. Varun Dutt
Introduction
Muscle fatigue is the decline in ability of muscles to generate force. It can be
a result of vigorous exercise but abnormal fatigue may be caused by barriers
to or interference with the different stages of muscle contraction. Let’ see an
example of muscle fatigue.
You’re at your local gym, getting your pump on and lifting dumbbells.
You’re feeling strong and decide to try a 30 lb curl. Rep 1, rep 2, rep 3. . . .
Ugh . . . why is it getting so hard to lift?
As we know the brain orderly recruits motor units depending on the force
needed. But what could be happening when you are lifting weights and your
muscles start to burn?
The factors that explain fatigue are complex, and after more than 100 years
of investigation, this is still a topic of active research!
For example, short-term fatigue (the failure to do 30 lb curls, do more
push-ups, etc.) is different from long-term fatigue (a marathon run, a
100-mile bicycle ride, or a full-day hike through the Rocky Mountains of
Colorado). Taken from: How Your Brain Works, Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo
We can use our new skills of recording electromyograms to gain an
understanding of why our muscles get tired.
Experiment: Isometric Biceps Hold
Place two patch electrodes on your biceps, and clip your red alligator recording leads to
them.

Place a patch electrode on the back of your hand and clip the black alligator ground lead to
it. Then plug the electrode cable into your SpikerBox, and hook up your SpikerBox to your
recording device.

Select a dumbbell that is at about 60% of your maximum lifting weight. Depending on your
strength, this can be anywhere from 10–25 lbs (or ~5– 12 kg).

With your back to a wall to control your posture and arm position, bend your elbow at a
90-degree angle and hold the weight in your hand for as long as you can. Your muscles are
working, but your joints are not moving.

This is called an “isometric” (Greek for “same length”) contraction. It may be possible that
your wrist will tire faster than your biceps. If this happens, you can hang the weight off
your wrist rather than holding the dumbbell in your hand.

Taken from: How Your Brain Works, Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo
Experiment: Isometric Biceps Hold
Record your EMG during this task. Adjust the gain of your signal so that the signal doesn’t get
clipped on the screen of your recording software. Be sure you can see the peaks of the EMG
spikes.
Now that you are ready, pick up the weight and hold it steady for as long as you can. Observe the
amplitude (height) and firing rate (number of impulses) in the signal. Make a note of when fatigue
starts and when failure occurs. When finished, scroll through your data and see if you can spot any
trends. [Link]

Taken from: How Your Brain Works, Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo
Experiment: Isometric Biceps Hold
There does seem to be something going on here! The amplitude of the electromyogram signal is getting smaller the longer you
hold the weight.

Indeed, a closer look at the EMG reveals that the spikes from the larger motor units are systematically disappearing as the
isometric hold goes on— until some point where the only units that are left are not enough . . . and you drop the weight.

This reduction in the muscle’s ability to produce the desired force or accomplish the desired movement is called “muscle
fatigue.”

Your brain can recruit new motor units to replace an already active motor unit that is experiencing fatigue. But the spare resources
are limited.

Taken from: How Your Brain Works, Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo
Discussion
To understand why motor units get tired, we have to
look at the mechanism behind muscle movement.
When a muscle cell fires an action potential, this
causes a release of calcium (Ca2+) inside the
muscle fiber from the sarcoplasmic reticulum. The
Ca2+ then flows into the sarcomere, which contains
actin and myosin.
This initiates a complex cellular reaction that allows
the myosin to pull on the actin. The movement of
myosin pulling on actin in the sarcomeres is called a
“sliding filament model,” and it consists of four
steps. Taken from: How Your Brain Works, Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo
Taken from: How Your Brain Works, Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo
 Discussion
ATP is a small molecule that contains chemical energy. It is produced during
the breakdown of food during energy metabolism. Oxygen, carried by the
blood and delivered to the muscles, is needed to produce ATP.

As long as oxygen is present and can be readily transported to the muscle cell,
ATP can be produced at incredible rates. This is called “aerobic” contraction,
meaning “using oxygen.”

However, contracting muscles can restrict blood flow and thus oxygen
availability. Muscles could simply be working so intensely (a sprint at top
speed) that there is not enough oxygen to meet the demand.

If oxygen isn’t available as an electron acceptor, the Krebs cycle and electron
transport chain cannot operate, and the muscle must gain ATP from other
sources.

For example, for rapid, intense activity, phosphocreatine (synthesized from Taken from: How Your Brain Works, Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo
amino acids) can serve as a phosphate donor to allow ATP formation. This is
called “anaerobic” contraction, meaning “not using oxygen.”
Experiment: Modeling Rates of Fatigue in Isometric Grip
Let’s add some data on the amount of force we can generate. To do that, we can use a hand-dynamometer or hand
gripper with a strain gauge sensor attached. A gripper that can measure up to a 100 lb (45 kg) range is good enough.

The hand-dynamometer is designed to measure your force grip. Place two patch electrodes along your inner forearm.
Connect the electrode leads and cables the same way you did for the bicep isometric hold.

Only this time, you should be sure to manually keep track of the force data every 10s, or plug the gripper into the
SpikerBox.

When you are ready, press record and start squeezing as hard as you can for as long as you can. You will see your
forearm tighten up as your sensor starts spitting out your grip strength. Try to keep squeezing as hard as you can.

You may notice that you will get little jumps in the force as you consciously re-engage in keeping the force
maximized. That’s OK. Just keep applying maximum force until you give up. Whew! Press stop, and take a look at
the recording.
 Experiment: Modeling Rates of Fatigue in Isometric Grip

Here we can see both the strain gauge grip force as well as the EMG. We can take the first 5 seconds
of the grip and the last 5 seconds of the grip to get an idea of how the EMG and force are changing.
We can use this to estimate the rate in which our motor units are dropping out by fitting it to the linear
function:
Here “y” is the power of the EMG, “x” is time,
“m” is equal to our EMG slope (rate of fatigue),
and “b” represents the offset from the “y” axis.

Taken from: How Your Brain Works, Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo
Experiment: Modeling Rates of Fatigue in Isometric Grip
You can calculate the rate of fatigue using the equation:

Selecting the first 5s of the EMG trace, we can measure the power at 6.83 mV.
The last 5s of the trace has dropped to 2.1 mV. We can also see that the entire flex was 116s. So our
rate of fatigue becomes: m = (2.1 mV– 6.83 mV)/(116s–0s) = –0.04 mV/s, with a peak force at 32 kg.
Try collecting data from multiple people and calculate the average rates of fatigue. You may find that
while men may produce more initial force, the women may fatigue more slowly.
[Link]
Experiment: Modeling Rates of Fatigue in Isometric Grip
For example, women may have had an average rate of -0.06 mV/s, while the men you sampled may have
come in at –0.11 mV/s.
Your preliminary data suggests that women may have better muscle endurance! Why would they be better
at maintaining their strength over a longer period of time? Are they stronger? Not necessarily! Endurance
isn’t really about strength. Are they tougher? Certainly.
Are they just flat out better in terms of muscular endurance? Maybe! Research studies have been looking at
this difference and have found that women’s endurance is often greater than men’s.
Where can we see this in a non-scientific setting though? Women’s impressive endurance gives them an
edge in rock climbing—this is a sport where it is common to see women in direct competition with men.
Research is also being done on women’s endurance running, and it looks like men and women are on equal
footing there as well!
Follow-Up Questions
(1) Try the biceps and forearms fatigue tests on both arms and hands to see if you observe anything
different. As you know, you have a dominant arm/hand (being left-handed versus right-handed). Is your
dominant arm/hand stronger or more fatigue resistant than the other?

(2) How can two muscles that are about the same size be so different in their fatigue properties? We didn’t
cover it here, but you can read about slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers to learn more.

(3) Are there muscles that are very fatigue resistant? Can you think of some examples? Work out your
biceps for a month at your school gym. Measure your fatigue time and EMG changes before the period of
training and after the period of training. Be sure to use the same test load/force.

(4) When hiking your favorite trail (like the Wonderland Trail or Torres del Paine), you may find, even if
you are not very fit, you can hike for 6–10 hours. However, if you tried to lift a 100 lb (45 kg) barbell
repeatedly, you would soon get tired within 5–30 reps over a couple of minutes, depending on your athletic
ability. Why is the time scale of fatigue so different in these two activities?
Reference
● Gage, G., & Marzullo, T. (2022). How Your Brain Works: Neuroscience Experiments for Everyone. MIT Press.