CNS? Central Nervous System? Overload? WTF?

When people say that "Training to failure will not caus overtraining, BUT it is very taxing on the CNS," what do they mean?

Central Nervous System? What does that have to do with anything?

The CNS is your central nervous system. It is involved in all nerve response and muscle activity. You can train your CNS for several types of funtionality, such as endurance, power, strength, etc.

Now about the CNS overload part. By doing too much working out, especially heavy compound exercises to failure too much too often, your CNS will not be able to keep up with the work and the impulses it sends will become weaker, and your CNS will fatigue. You will generally feel weaker, feel bad, and need time off to let your CNS recuperate.

And training to failure is a very good cause to overtraining, as is working out with over 90% max on a single exercise for some weeks straight to failure.

The CNS is VERY important!!

very true i prefer only to failure on the last set of each excercise while many do it every set.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Guardian [/i]
[B]very true i prefer only to failure on the last set of each excercise while many do it every set. [/B][/QUOTE]

This is why powerlifters can get away maxing out on a lift every week and goin heavy.....they dont go to failure on every exercise, if they go to failure at all

i dotn get what that was aimed toward me? Are u callign me a powerlifter could eb please explain better

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Guardian [/i]
[B]i dotn get what that was aimed toward me? Are u callign me a powerlifter could eb please explain better [/B][/QUOTE]

I was agreeing with you.....and giving more info......

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by UnlimitedSteel [/i]
[B]The CNS is your central nervous system. It is involved in all nerve response and muscle activity. You can train your CNS for several types of funtionality, such as endurance, power, strength, etc.

Now about the CNS overload part. By doing too much working out, especially heavy compound exercises to failure too much too often, your CNS will not be able to keep up with the work and the impulses it sends will become weaker, and your CNS will fatigue. You will generally feel weaker, feel bad, and need time off to let your CNS recuperate.

And training to failure is a very good cause to overtraining, as is working out with over 90% max on a single exercise for some weeks straight to failure.

The CNS is VERY important!! [/B][/QUOTE]
nice explanation, big bump to ya
peace
j

Thanks. I don't see how you can go to failure every set, though... Becuase once you fail, man, are those muscles tired.

Thanks jhov.

Mullet, you can go to failure on every set you do if you wanted. All going to failure means is lifting to the point where you can not complete any more reps for a certain set. You can do that for as many sets as you want/can....though you shouldnt.

As i posted in a thread awhile back:

Well you could look in any biology textbook and it would tell you the CNs is responsible for coordinating movements, weight training has a heavy effect but lets go to actual info.

As stated in the book Supertraining by Mel Siff

"Overtraining and exhaustion are both consequences of imbalance between stress and the adaptability of the body. Successful adaption implicates supercompensatory (adaptive reconstruction) processes that lead to a higher functional level of the body, wheras unsuccessful adaption depletes the current adaption reserves.

...
Energy exchanges in the body are involved with many other events such as tissue repair and nervous impulses. It follows that overtraining is closely related to an inadequet rate of recovery and adaption of:

-The energy systems of the body
-cell repair and growth mechanisms
-hormonal systems
-nervous processes

...
There are two types of overtraining: general and local. General overtraining affects the whole body and results in stagnation of a decrease in a preformance, wheras local overtraining affects a specific bodypart.

...
Adaption to physical, pyschological, or enviromental stress depends on the inextricable links (*my quick explaination* fast and slow control which is divided from the muscular systems, the CNS splits to fast and the endocrine system splits to slow, they meet at Hypothalamus**) between the central nervous system (the fast control system of the body) and the endocrine system of the body (the slow control system).Any changes in the Central Nervous System and endocrine systems can affect performance in the muscular system.

... (a) A-overtraining (Addisonic overtraining) named after Addison's disease, which is associated with diminished activity of the adrenal glands. This category of overtraining affects predominantly the parasympathetic pathways of the autnomic nervous system and is difficult to detect early, due to the absense of any dramatic symptoms. Suspicion that something is amiss may be aroused by the appearance of stagnation or deterioration in the athlete's performance.

(b) B-overtraining (Basedowic overtraining), named after Basedow's disease , which is associated with thyroid hyperactivity. This category of overtraining effects predominantly the sympathetic pathways of the autonomic nervous system and, as the classical type of overtraining with its abundance of symptoms, is easy to diagnose

...In the case of strength training, overtraining injuries may be the result of too many repetions or sets, regular training with near maximum loads, training the same muscle groups too frequently, inadequet recovery periods, insufficent rest or faulty execution of any movement."

That information was gathered from pages 437-439 in the book Supertraining. The book itself has over 13 pages of bibliography and references. I hope some of that information was able to prove to you about the link between overtraining and the CNS as well as explain it somewhat.