I used to just accept this as a given, but then, I got to wondering. What is it about the nervous system that requires such long recovery? I understand why the long recovery between sets, but why between workouts? Why is it that things like depth jumps, or speed and quickness drills are recommended only once or twice per week?
Anyone have any insights?
To help you grasp why the central nervous system needs ample recovery time, maybe this will help.
I had this cheap drill and I had to drill a lot of holes, I don’t remember why. But anyway, I would start drilling and after a few minutes the drill would get really hot and would start to slow down. If I didn’t wait long enough the same thing would happen almost instantly. If I waited for a long enough time for the drill to recover then it was all good, and I could drill holes for awhile before the drill wore out.
This is similar to training methods that cause cns exhaustion. You can go ahead and try to do a bunch of cns intensive work, but you’ll soon discover that you’ll wear out extremely quickly just like the drill and your training sessions will suck.
I hope this helps. I bet someone else will post a more enlightening answer.
[quote]jit07 wrote:
To help you grasp why the central nervous system needs ample recovery time, maybe this will help.
I had this cheap drill and I had to drill a lot of holes, I don’t remember why. But anyway, I would start drilling and after a few minutes the drill would get really hot and would start to slow down. If I didn’t wait long enough the same thing would happen almost instantly. If I waited for a long enough time for the drill to recover then it was all good, and I could drill holes for awhile before the drill wore out.
This is similar to training methods that cause cns exhaustion. You can go ahead and try to do a bunch of cns intensive work, but you’ll soon discover that you’ll wear out extremely quickly just like the drill and your training sessions will suck.
I hope this helps. I bet someone else will post a more enlightening answer. [/quote]
That’s actually a pretty creative example. Kudos to you on that. I understand that the nervous system needs longer recovery. But it’s the WHY that I’m really wondering about. Why doesn’t metabolic work (for example) necessitate such a long recovery period?
ahh. I see. I would like to hear an explanation myself. I’ll have to do some googling.
[quote]jit07 wrote:
To help you grasp why the central nervous system needs ample recovery time, maybe this will help.
I had this cheap drill and I had to drill a lot of holes, I don’t remember why. But anyway, I would start drilling and after a few minutes the drill would get really hot and would start to slow down. If I didn’t wait long enough the same thing would happen almost instantly. If I waited for a long enough time for the drill to recover then it was all good, and I could drill holes for awhile before the drill wore out.
This is similar to training methods that cause cns exhaustion. You can go ahead and try to do a bunch of cns intensive work, but you’ll soon discover that you’ll wear out extremely quickly just like the drill and your training sessions will suck.
I hope this helps. I bet someone else will post a more enlightening answer. [/quote]
So you are comparing your CNS to a cheap drill?
[quote]apwsearch wrote:
jit07 wrote:
To help you grasp why the central nervous system needs ample recovery time, maybe this will help.
I had this cheap drill and I had to drill a lot of holes, I don’t remember why. But anyway, I would start drilling and after a few minutes the drill would get really hot and would start to slow down. If I didn’t wait long enough the same thing would happen almost instantly. If I waited for a long enough time for the drill to recover then it was all good, and I could drill holes for awhile before the drill wore out.
This is similar to training methods that cause cns exhaustion. You can go ahead and try to do a bunch of cns intensive work, but you’ll soon discover that you’ll wear out extremely quickly just like the drill and your training sessions will suck.
I hope this helps. I bet someone else will post a more enlightening answer.
So you are comparing your CNS to a cheap drill?
[/quote]
Just an analogy. But you know… sometimes my cns feels like a cheap drill. man that definitely doesn’t sound good, oh well.
I dont buy into all that CNS fatigue and long CNS recovery thing.
Real world proofs-
1.table tennis elite players training hard for up to 10 hours a day…demands-fast reflexes,very good coordination,quick footwork…training every day
2.elite weightlifters doing explosive lifting close to their maximum for a few sessions a day every day
3.Famous Finnland lumberjacks competing in powerlifting deadlifting ungodly weights beacause they lift heavy shit every day for a living
CNS capacity can be built.
SAID principle=what you train is what you improve
[quote]BALBO wrote:
I dont buy into all that CNS fatigue and long CNS recovery thing.
Real world proofs-
1.table tennis elite players training hard for up to 10 hours a day…demands-fast reflexes,very good coordination,quick footwork…training every day
2.elite weightlifters doing explosive lifting close to their maximum for a few sessions a day every day
3.Famous Finnland lumberjacks competing in powerlifting deadlifting ungodly weights beacause they lift heavy shit every day for a living
CNS capacity can be built.
SAID principle=what you train is what you improve
[/quote]
1.Hardly CNS intensive
2.I thought the majority of the work was done with 80-90%
3.Manual labour isn’t CNS intensive. Might be hard on the muscles, but not the CNS.
[quote]Hanley wrote:
BALBO wrote:
I dont buy into all that CNS fatigue and long CNS recovery thing.
Real world proofs-
1.table tennis elite players training hard for up to 10 hours a day…demands-fast reflexes,very good coordination,quick footwork…training every day
2.elite weightlifters doing explosive lifting close to their maximum for a few sessions a day every day
3.Famous Finnland lumberjacks competing in powerlifting deadlifting ungodly weights beacause they lift heavy shit every day for a living
CNS capacity can be built.
SAID principle=what you train is what you improve
1.Hardly CNS intensive
2.I thought the majority of the work was done with 80-90%
3.Manual labour isn’t CNS intensive. Might be hard on the muscles, but not the CNS.
[/quote]
If you lift heavy shit for a living every day it is CNS intensive.
As for elite weightlifters,I would say that training 80-90% of THEIR 1RM is CNS intensive,but maybe you think its not.
bump, anyone have any more insights into this? If you’re a T-Nation contributor reading this, feel free to chime in here.
“Think of the central nervous system as the central powerplant to a city. It�??s a limited pool of energy. If the city gets too big and puts too much strain on a particular powerplant, the power goes out. Fatigue in the central nervous system explains the old, �??throw a rock in the pool�?? effect of whole body movements. This is why you can do a hardcore leg workout today, come in the gym tomorrow, and find that the strength on your bench press is negatively affected. The fatigue in your bench press doesn’t come from muscular fatigue, but through neural fatigue.”
For the ping pong thing.
“Now, why can a session of deadlifts and squats today have a negative effect on your bench press tomorrow, but forearms today not cause any fatigue in opposing muscle groups? Because deadlifts involve so many more muscles and require a much greater output by your CENTRAL POWER PLANT.”
This is from Kelly Bagget.
www.mindandmuscle.net/mindandmuscle/magpage.php?artID=85&pageNum=1
I have no real insight except to ask the question:
Perhaps the CNS becomes fatigued in order to prevent injury and promote healing?
If you’re tired, you aren’t going to lift heavy shit today and your body will have a chance to recover and rejuvinate.
http://www.pharmacorama.com/en/Sections/Serotonin_2_1.php
that’s the long answer that you’ll need to figure out.
basically… lots of serotonin is produced in the brain during CNS work. serotonin has a rather slow metabolism and probably a rather low extracerebral diffusive gradient. what exactly serotonin does to inhibit neuronal firing is uncertain but… that’s about all they’ve got at the moment i think.
also, in defense of Balbo’s POV, i don’t see why the body should be any less adaptive to more frequent CNS work than it is to anything else. Sure it’ll probably always be slower than muscle recovery but if you give your body a reason to adapt, it’ll probably do so.
EDIT
it’s late, so pay no attention to the horrible grammar
[quote]Hanley wrote:
BALBO wrote:
I dont buy into all that CNS fatigue and long CNS recovery thing.
Real world proofs-
1.table tennis elite players training hard for up to 10 hours a day…demands-fast reflexes,very good coordination,quick footwork…training every day
1.Hardly CNS intensive
[/quote]
Table tennis is incredibly explosive. Have you ever seen a high level match? Even when I was at the peak of overall fitness, I couldn’t play for very long before my game started to fall apart. Practice generally involves short drills and a lot of time between matches, unless you’re just training for endurance. The attacking movement is basically explosive leg drive and torso rotation. I found that cable push-pull (explosive rotation) and Power Drive helped a lot.
This was the first image google showed for “table tennis” because I was wondering if it was different from what one might call, “ping pong”.
To say ping pong is CNS intensive… that’s ridiculous. And no, I am not using logic based solely on the google search.
[quote]BALBO wrote:
Hanley wrote:
BALBO wrote:
I dont buy into all that CNS fatigue and long CNS recovery thing.
Real world proofs-
1.table tennis elite players training hard for up to 10 hours a day…demands-fast reflexes,very good coordination,quick footwork…training every day
2.elite weightlifters doing explosive lifting close to their maximum for a few sessions a day every day
3.Famous Finnland lumberjacks competing in powerlifting deadlifting ungodly weights beacause they lift heavy shit every day for a living
CNS capacity can be built.
SAID principle=what you train is what you improve
1.Hardly CNS intensive
2.I thought the majority of the work was done with 80-90%
3.Manual labour isn’t CNS intensive. Might be hard on the muscles, but not the CNS.
If you lift heavy shit for a living every day it is CNS intensive.
As for elite weightlifters,I would say that training 80-90% of THEIR 1RM is CNS intensive,but maybe you think its not.
[/quote]
80-85% isn’t that intensive imo…
86-90 is pretty intensive
90-95% is where you get broken to bits.
2 sessions a day but I’d imagine an elite weightlifter can sleep a lot.
80-85% isn’t too bad at bad at all, even with little sleep. 86-90 is tough going after 6 sessions like that, but 90-95% after a recovery week, 2 heavy lifting and 2 heavy squats and I’m spent. Bar feels heavy off the floor, sharpness just isn’t there.
You can definatey train CNS fatigue over years of training to cope better with it.
Koing
Stolen from Mike Burgener’s site:
ZLATAN VANEV�??S TRAINING IN SOFIA, BULGARIA ON 1999 OCTOBER
On the training camp in Sofia, October 1999, there were three different groups; Group A (male�??s national team, group B (female�??s national team), group C (challenger male group).
The morning training was start by the group A (snatch), then group B and C did the same. After B and D finished the snatch A started the c+j and B and C followed. Then group A did the snatch again and B and C followed. Then group A did c+j and B and C followed. Then front squat A, B, C. Morning session started at 10 o�??clock and lasted 4 hours till about 14.00 o�??clock.
After morning session lifters ate lunch and after that took the naps.
The evening session started at 17.00 o�??clock by the group A (snatch), followed by B and C. Then A did the c+j and B and C followed. Then A did the snatch and again B and C followed. Then all groups did the front squat. The evening session lasted about till 20.30 o�??clock.
On Monday�??s and Friday�??s evening trainings lifters went to the really maximal weights (100-102 %) and did not use any wraps.
Everybody was concentrated to their own lifts and lifters didn�??t talk much. Every time when a lifter hit his target weight on that movement he rose his hand up to get attention from the coaches. And the others respected the lifters attempt. Many times the bars were loaded with weights which were over the world record.
When Finnish coaches asked �??why you don�??t do pulls and back squats�??, the answer they got was �??in the competition there are no snatch pulls or back squats, only snatches and clean and jerks�??.
Here is Zlatan Vanev�??s training day on 19 (Tuesday) October 1999. His records in 77 kilos weight class were snatch 165 and c + j 205 and total 370:
MORNING SESSION
10.10 �?? 10.28 Snatch 80/2+110/2+140/1+150/1+(155/1 went over)
10.28 �?? 11.30 rest
11.30 �?? 11.45 c + j 120/1+140/1+160/1+180/1+200/1
11.45 �?? 12.30 rest
12.30 �?? 12.55 snatch 90/1+120/1+140/1+150/1+90/1x2+120/1+140/1
12.55 �?? 13.40 rest
13.40 �?? 13.55 c + j 90/1+120/1+160/1+(200/1 missed the jerk)+190/1
13.55 �?? 14.00 rest
14.00 �?? 14.13 front squat 160/1+200/1+220/1+240/1
14.30 �?? 15.00 lunch
EVENING SESSION
17.45 �?? 18.00 snatch 90/1+120/1+140/1+150/1+160/1
19.00 �?? 19.12 Abadjev kept a speech to the lifters
19.12 �?? 19.18 rest
19.18 �?? 19.35 c + j 100/1+130/1+160/1+190/1+205/1
19.35 �?? 20.18 rest (listening classical musik)
20.18 �?? 20.30 snatch 90/2+110/1+140/1+(150/1 went over)
20.30 �?? 20.55 rest
20.55 �?? 21.06 front squat 140/2+210/1+(250/1 didn�??t get it)+240/1
21.30 �?? 22.00 dinner
He’s hitting at least 90% every session, and Tuesday isn’t even a “heavy” day!
So I guess it would help clarify what we all think CNS intensive work is. Is there a standardized definition in sport/exercise science?
[quote]wfifer wrote:
Hanley wrote:
BALBO wrote:
I dont buy into all that CNS fatigue and long CNS recovery thing.
Real world proofs-
1.table tennis elite players training hard for up to 10 hours a day…demands-fast reflexes,very good coordination,quick footwork…training every day
1.Hardly CNS intensive
Table tennis is incredibly explosive. Have you ever seen a high level match? Even when I was at the peak of overall fitness, I couldn’t play for very long before my game started to fall apart. Practice generally involves short drills and a lot of time between matches, unless you’re just training for endurance. The attacking movement is basically explosive leg drive and torso rotation. I found that cable push-pull (explosive rotation) and Power Drive helped a lot.
[/quote]
Are you serious, man? “Sorry guys, I can’t go to the gym today. I played some ping pong yesterday and I’ve got to let my CNS recover!”
A normal game of pingpong is to world class ping pong as a 6 year old trying to shoot freethrows is to the NBA finals.
Anyway on topic, you should be able to train your CNS, so just keep repeatedly killing yourself in the gym, and see how it goes!