Fitness, Fatigue & Performance

Fitness, fatigue and performance are all very closely related and each one has an affect on the other. 

In order to improve fitness (get stronger, more conditioned, more muscle) one must put significant stress on the body. Enough stress to force your body to adapt. This application of stress (training) causes fatigue to rise. 

Fatigue is defined by a reduction in performance so we can say fatigue maskS performance. When fatigue is high your ability to perform is low. 

That same application of stress (training) also causes an increase in ones fitness. But remember that stress has to be significant enough to force your body to adapt. So that rise in fatigue can also be significant. 

If your performance is defined as your ability to show your fitness you can have decreased performance while still improving your fitness. In order to properly display your fitness (performance) your fatigue must be low. 

So from this we can say that performance = fitness - fatigue

So if fatigue is high like during meet prep or the end of a training block it is common to see a dip in performance but once you start to drive recovery and drop fatigue your performance will increase as the fatigue will no longer be masking your fitness.

So if you are maintaining performance or even see a dip in performance while fatigue is high you may (and probably are) still driving fitness. 

If fatigue is too high performance may suffer to the point your training can’t continue to progress and you increase your risk for injury. If fatigue is too low then training is not stressful enough to drive optimal fitness. 

During times that it is important to be able to perform or display your fitness training must be controlled to allow for fatigue to dissipate while maintaining fitness as high as possible. 

When training, it is important to have a program that takes your fitness, fatigue and performance into account. At Resilient Training Lab, our coaches design client programs with these principles in mind.