Neuromuscular Mechanisms of Fatigue and Recovery in High-Performance Athletes

Fatigue and recovery are central to understanding how athletes respond to training and competition. However, changes in performance, perceived exertion, and training load do not, by themselves, identify the mechanisms underlying reduced exercise capacity or restored function. Fatigue can involve interacting changes in voluntary neural drive, spinal and corticospinal responses, motor unit behaviour, muscle contractile function, and sensorimotor control. These responses depend on the exercise task, sporting demands, and individual characteristics. Recovery may also proceed at different rates across these systems, creating uncertainty when interpreting an athlete’s readiness for subsequent training or competition.This Research Topic aims to advance understanding of the neural and neuromuscular mechanisms of fatigue and recovery in high-performance athletes and examine their relevance to monitoring and practice. A central gap concerns how mechanistic laboratory findings translate to sport-specific tasks, repeated training exposure, and competitive environments. We welcome research that distinguishes central and peripheral contributions to performance fatigability, examines their interaction with perceived fatigability, and tracks recovery using clearly defined outcomes and assessment time points. Studies evaluating whether neuromuscular measures add predictive value beyond established monitoring approaches are particularly encouraged.Contributions should address competitive athletes whose training and performance demands are clearly characterised. Authors should report sporting discipline, competition level, training history, and relevant participant characteristics to support interpretation and comparison. Research involving women, youth, and para-athletes is encouraged, including studies examining how developmental, physiological, or impairment-related factors influence fatigue and recovery.Themes include, but are not limited to:• Central and peripheral mechanisms of exercise-induced fatigue and their recovery trajectories.• Voluntary activation, corticospinal and spinal responses, motor unit behaviour, and muscle contractile function.• Sensorimotor integration, coordination, and movement control under fatigue.• Interactions between perceived fatigability, cognitive demands, pacing, and neuromuscular performance.• Responses to training blocks, repeated competition, travel, and congested schedules.• Effects of sleep, nutrition, thermal strategies, active recovery, neuromodulation, andtraining-load modification on neural or neuromuscular outcomes.• Validity, reliability, responsiveness, and practical feasibility of laboratory and field basedassessments.We welcome original research, controlled intervention studies, longitudinal investigations, systematic reviews, and methodological contributions. Studies using electromyography,s timulation techniques, EEG, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, wearable sensors, or modelling should establish a clear connection between the selected measures and the proposed mechanisms. Multimodal approaches are encouraged where they help distinguish mechanisms from associated performance changes. Contributions should use transparent definitions, justify fatigue and recovery criteria, and acknowledge measurement limitations.Together, this collection seeks to strengthen the evidence connecting motor neuroscience with athlete monitoring, recovery strategies, and performance management. Topic editors: Prashant Kumar Choudhary, Hassane ZOUHAL Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/87005/neuromuscular-mechanisms-of-fatigue-and-recovery-in-high-performance-athletes