ABSTRACT
The study of fatigue in humans has been a source of interest for over a century. Fatigue in sport and exercise can be broadly categorised into two types: peripheral fatigue and central fatigue. To understand sport and exercise fatigue research, it is important to appreciate how fatigue is measured and assessed. The two primary direct methods of fatigue assessment are the quantification of voluntary and electrically stimulated muscle force production and the assessment of low-frequency fatigue. Both methods are laboratory-based and require carefully controlled procedures to produce accurate results. Low-frequency fatigue assessment takes place on a small amount of muscle mass, therefore its applicability to real-world sport and exercise situations is limited. Indirect methods of fatigue assessment include time to exhaustion tests, electromyography, muscle biopsies, blood sampling, perceptual measurements, magnetic resonance imaging, and transcranial magnetic stimulation. All these measures have positives and negatives associated with their ability to shed light on fatigue development during exercise.
