One of the hottest topics in endurance science the past half decade or so is understanding durability the ability to still put out strong efforts despite a lot of accumulated fatigue.We all know the feeling. The first interval (or hill) of a workout or ride can feel almost effortless. The same effort during the 10th interval can feel absolute agony. The same with a small rise at the end of a century ride feeling like Alpe dHuez.This concept of fatigue resistance or durability is often what separates even elite amateurs from the top pros. Sure an elite amateur can generate a single hard effort often when fresh as a pro. But can they replicate that effort with a lot of fatigue in the system, at the end of a mountain stage or in the third week of a Grand Tour?Modeling of performance and training effects has come a long way in the past few decades, with concepts like critical power, W, acute and chronic training loads, and different concepts of threshold power and strain scores.What is more difficult to model and predict, however, is durability. Scientists are still trying to define best practices to quantify it, let alone develop models for it.Voet et al. 2025Adding to this literature, my South African friend Rob Lambertss lab studied the impact of training on a lab-based durability protocol (Voet et al. 2025). Specifically, their goal was to see whether there were any differences in durability over the course of 8 weeks of natural…
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