03 / train bored

University of Kent’s Professor Samuele Marcora’s psychobiological model of fatigue is gaining a foothold in this complex area, placing the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) at the heart of when you decide to cycle faster, slow down or quit altogether.

The ACC is a part of the brain that’s implicated in a number of cognitive and emotional functions, like perception of fatigue and motivation, and is why Marcora dismisses the traditional physiological model of fatigue, based around low glycogen levels or acidic blood.

“Aspects like glycogen do play a part but an indirect one,” explains Marcora. “If your muscles are weaker, you have to increase central motor command to compensate. This is perceived as an increase in effort, which will slow you down.”

How can this information benefit your cycling performance? It’s all down to boredom. You see, when you read newspapers or listen to politicians, your brain and ACC is flooded with a chemical called adenosine, which is partly responsible for that feeling of mental fatigue.

Marcora suggests that drowning your brain in adenosine by undertaking mundane mental tasks forces your brain to adapt, building resistance to the fatigue- inducing chemical. “Given that the ACC is likely to be intensely activated during prolonged exercise, the hypothesis is that adenosine builds up in this area, causing changes in perception of effort and self-control,” he says.

According to Marcora, cycling with mental fatigue will, ultimately, make you quicker because it’s the equivalent of riding with added weight (water bottle filled with iron filings, like days gone by). When you remove the weights (cycle fresh), you ride faster. It’s why once or twice a week you should cycle hard after work. Marcora’s also developing an app with the MOD that’ll elicit the “right level of boredom and difficulty” to tap into his psychobiological model of fatigue.