Professor Niels Ørtenblad - Muscle failure: the role and mechanisms of energy in skeletal muscle fatigue

As part of the IAS Festival of Failure, IAS Visiting Fellow Professor Niels Ørtenblad delivers a seminar, with an introduction on sporting failure from Pro Vice-Chancellor for Sport, Professor Jo Maher. Skeletal muscles have an impressive force and power generating capacity. However, with intense or prolonged activation muscle function is reduced, termed fatigue. Despite a broad interest of the scientific community, fundamental questions remain unsolved about how activation per se is affected by exercise or disuse and how metabolism affects muscle regulation. It is herein remarkable how precise skeletal muscle fibers with a high and fluctuating energy-turnover, balance energy utilization with production, preventing loss of energy and thereby cell integrity. With an integrative approach, i.e. combining data from whole body human experiments, including high level athletes, though to more mechanistic models, I will discuss metabolic factors contributing to impaired force generating capacity. I will particularly focus on the role of muscle glucose stores (glycogen), as we and colleagues in the field, have recently demonstrated that the muscle glycogen, serves as an energy sensor, contributing to muscle function and fatigue. For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias