Search for: All records

Cardiovascular and peripheral muscle efficiencies have been largely investigated as valid predictors of physical performance. In sports medicine, maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) and lactate threshold (LT) are often used to quantify physical fitness in professional and recreational athletes alike. However, only few studies have attempted to establish if a association exists between brain activity and the successful exertion of physical exercise. In particular, it is unclear if factors such as motivation and resilience to fatigue (or lack thereof), which arguably originate within the brain, can be quantitatively related to physical performance. As a first step to improve our understanding of the role of the central nervous system in physical exercise, we investigated the association between cortical oxygenation measured with functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and physical performance in healthy young adults during cycling.