Review of exercise-induced physiological control models to explain the development of fatigue to improve sports performance and future trend

News. — Sports performance is the pursuit of excellence where a sportsman measures his or her performance quantitatively or qualitatively to move towards his or her desired goal. Several physical aspects can influence sport performance. One of these aspects is the neuromuscular factor Tsolakis and Tsolakis (2008) that arises from the relationship between the nervous system, and the musculoskeletal system. Moreover, in many sports (for example, running and cycling), the establishment of an effective rhythm will keep an athlete organised, and physically efficient for an excellent performance. Subsequently, this rhythm will impose a cadence on musculoskeletal activity, mental control as well as psychological factors. These psychological factors can be self-motivation, level of alertness and mental acuity that are the product of a number of integrated factors like physical fatigue or other unrelated sport stresses such as environmental conditions that are not within the athlete's personal control. The athlete is required to have the ability to adapt in these unexpected environmental factors. Another aspect is coaching and external support/assistance for the athlete (in terms of nutrition, sport technique, tactics and training) to the aspiring competitor for success to occur. Amidst all these factors which influence sports performance, there is one crucial factor which cannot be overlooked and it is the exercise-induced fatigue which causes a reduction in physical and mental performance.

Conclusion. — Therefore, in this review, we describe and discuss the various physiological theoretical models of exercise-induced fatigue, and the way forward to assess these theories using mathematical models and analysis of biosignals.