ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights types of exercise that have different physical requirements, and potential fatigue mechanisms linked to each type. These exercises include prolonged submaximal exercise, field-based team games, middle-distance exercise, long-distance sprinting, short-distance sprinting, and resistance training. Prolonged submaximal exercise is reliant on the rate of aerobic metabolism of a limited energy store and the exercise intensity that can be maintained without development of hyperthermia or impaired neuromuscular function. Following the discussion of exercise demand, the chapter reviews the issues of gender and training status, and highlights what is currently known about the modifying role of these two factors in exercise fatigue. From a physiological standpoint, numerous potential explanations exist for gender differences in fatigability. Females may be less fatigable than males due to differences in muscle perfusion, type I muscle fibre content, muscle energy metabolism and metabolite production, and, potentially, differences in voluntary muscle activation.
