Fatigue resistance is now one of the hottest topics in the running world. But what exactly is it?
Scott Johnston, coach and author
You’ve probably experienced the sensations of a lack of fatigue resistance: the localized muscle pain in your legs at the end of a marathon or half-marathon (or any race, for that matter). This is opposite of global fatigue – where you just feel tired that makes you want to slow down or stop.
But local fatigue in the propelling muscles – that heavy, dead-legged feeling where it’s almost like your legs are giving out – is what we target when we run fatigue resistance workouts.
It’s a more specific way of thinking about fitness and fatigue. Yes, we want to be very fit. But can we build fitness in a very specific way so that our legs don’t give out at the end of a race? And while we’ll always experience fatigue, can we limit localized muscular fatigue so that it doesn’t slow us down so much?
To help us understand this new dimension of fitness, I invited one of the top ultramarathon coaches in the world on the Strength Running Podcast.
Scott Johnston on Fatigue Resistance
Scott Johnston is one of the top running coaches in the world, especially in mountain and high alpine sports. He’s worked with Killian Jornet (arguably one of the best ultra endurance athletes of all time) and a collection of the country’s top cross country skiers. Evoke Endurance is his new coaching company tailored to endurance athletes of all sports.
This year, he coached both the male and female winner of the UTMB trail race (Tom Evans and Ruth Croft). His book is one of my all-time favorite training books for endurance athletes: Training for the Uphill Athlete.
Don’t miss his other appearance on the show, where we discussed the Tripod of Endurance.
Our conversation focuses on fatigue resistance and how to build it into your training program:
- What is fatigue resistance?
- How do you build fatigue resistance (workouts, types of runs, paces, etc.)?
- The role of the nervous system in fatigue
- Mistakes when attempting to build this skill
- A lot more on training theory, workouts, and more
For more training ideas, check out Strength Running’s catalog of training programs for runners.
And if you love the podcast, please support our partners who make it sustainable!
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