CNS fatigue/CNS training - are they real?

[larky]

1. CNS fatigue - i haven't been able to find any hard-core science studies proving central nervous system exhaustion due to muscle usage. i've seen a lot of talk that "CNS can be exhausted even though the muscles are recovered", but where's the proof?

2. CNS training - where are the studies proving "you will train your CNS to fail" if you do your reps like this or like that?

if you've got hardcore links about CNS, i would appreciate it. thanks.

[BigKazWSM747]

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.

[Danielson]

Keep a detailed training log and listen to your body, if you are not making regular progress then consider your cns is not optimal.

[larky]

thanks for the replies

[BigKazWSM747]

no problem, hope that helped