From a traditional physiological perspective, endurance performance is the product of a mindless biological machine with exhaustion a “mechanical failure” that leads to “task failure.”

In the psychobiological world, slowing down or stopping is a “conscious choice” rather than a mechanical failure. Scientists hypothesise that our ancient predecessors would not completely exhaust themselves chasing their prey because that would have made them vulnerable to being eaten themselves. Instead the human mind evolved to always keep something in reserve – our lizard brain protects us by stopping us before we physically absolutely need to.

In the psychobiological model of endurance performance, slowing down becomes the balance between “perceived effort” and motivation.

Pain and muscle fatigue are still very real things, but their effect is now mediated by the brain’s perception of this effort which is additionally affected by many other factors; mental fatigue, state of mind, and self-talk for example.

One way to visualise this is that the brain sends the body “do it” signals that are stronger the more motivation you have. The body then sends the brain “don’t do it” signals based on its pain and fatigue. The better conditioned you are, the lower these “don’t do it” signals for any given effort.

The brain’s perception of effort is then a combination of the “don’t do it” signals… plus a myriad of other factors – many of which can be affected by how you coach and prepare your athletes beyond physical conditioning.  The video below describes this highlighting factors that research has shown to affect this equation (presented at USRowing’s Chasing Excellence Conference in January 2024).