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Cns Recovery And Overtraining


Geralt

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Ok this is maybe a bit of a vague topic but I was just overthinking this. I saw a topic from Adam Glass on FB and he made a comment on a question regarding training grippers. They are low priority for him at this moment. He also pointed out that grippers are very physicaly demanding.

Grippers, you like them or you hate them, but most of the guys over here know that in order to close big grippers, a proper recovered CNS is needed. Doing a lot of other training besides grippers messes up progress with them. I'm not talking lighter grippers but the harder MM grippers and everything from Ghp7 cert and up. That's why perhaps a lot of guys don't like grippers probably, because they can't progress, since they are doing to much besides grippers.

Would it be a bad assumption than that a lot of guys who train walk around with a permanently bad recovered CNS? And thus be overtrained without even knowing? What would be long term effects of that without even knowing one suffers this?

Not steering to comments on why people don't like grippers as in real life carry over and such. Every guy wants to benchpress and there is also little reallife carry over. Besides making impression to the other gender.

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Cant answer you but Im interested in other peoples thoughts!

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For me, a lot of it was psychological. I used to over think things when I did grippers. I would barely touch a barbel as I thought I would damage my gripper strength. Even writing essays etc and after a few pages my hands would ache and I used to think that my strength would dive because of this.

When I finally overcame these childish thoughts, my cns was always totally zapped and I would catch colds and flu easier and feel lethargic all the time

Very negative thought on the subject but hope it helps give you another perspective on the matter

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Ok this is maybe a bit of a vague topic but I was just overthinking this. I saw a topic from Adam Glass on FB and he made a comment on a question regarding training grippers. They are low priority for him at this moment. He also pointed out that grippers are very physicaly demanding.

Grippers, you like them or you hate them, but most of the guys over here know that in order to close big grippers, a proper recovered CNS is needed. Doing a lot of other training besides grippers messes up progress with them. I'm not talking lighter grippers but the harder MM grippers and everything from Ghp7 cert and up. That's why perhaps a lot of guys don't like grippers probably, because they can't progress, since they are doing to much besides grippers.

Would it be a bad assumption than that a lot of guys who train walk around with a permanently bad recovered CNS? And thus be overtrained without even knowing? What would be long term effects of that without even knowing one suffers this?

Not steering to comments on why people don't like grippers as in real life carry over and such. Every guy wants to benchpress and there is also little reallife carry over. Besides making impression to the other gender.

Adam using biofeedback testing for everything he does. Probably why he has gravitated away from being a pudgy steelbender and become a lean, mean hand balancer. Bottom line is if you know how to talk to your body and collect data, you will always know when something is good for you or not.

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I'm by no means an expert but I feel that one can still progress in grippers while training all other disciplines of grip at the same time. Obviously training grippers usually has to be done in the beginning of your grip routine to get the most out of your workout. And yes it can very taxing on your CNS. But even so, I've found out that with doing one good hard gripper workout a week even with all other grip training that week that I can continually make progress. After reading one of Jedds emails or from watching one of his videos I remember him mentioning the importance on incorporating a deload week in your training routine. When I started taking a deload week about every 4th week or so. I found that I always make great gains and hit new PR's. I either took the entire week off or did some active rest exercises while my body healed an my CNS recharged. It made a huge difference in my strength level and how fast I could progress.

Hope that makes sense.

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This^^^^^^^, you cant constantly push without a break and think you arent going to get hurt, i dont call it a deload, i take care of all the other stuff you couldnt while training, ie drink wit the homies. Long walk, like 5 plus miles. A massage some stretching, youll absolutely come back stronger. Youll know when you need it, if you dont youre just ignoring your own natural signals.

Edited by Jose Cabrera
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The CNS is a funny critter - so many things can impact it. I divide people into two very generalized groups here (and I mean very general). There are "muscle" lifters and "CNS" lifters and often fall into big muscled and smaller muscled individuals. Those people who can do their lifts with muscle power seldom over train their CNS - while strong skinny guys are what I call CNS recruiters and lift a lot on "nerve". My theory is a matter of recruitment is involved - with the CNS group firing a larger percentage of available fibers - which kind of makes sense - at least to me. This is not to say that appearance means much in predicting which group one might fall in (and all body parts are not the same here). Over time you can figure out where you lie along the spectrum from CNS to Muscle - and set up your easy - moderate - hard - and competition or feats of strength work and know when you need to back off or take a break. Something I have found of GREAT value over the years is this - your body doesn't know that a "week" has 7 days. Read your training log closely and find your rhythm - you may find your rotation should be 8 days or 12 days or whatever. I for example am almost a pure CNS lifter as concerns my forearms and hands - but not so much my legs - knowing this allows me to set up my training a little smarter than in years past and continue to still make incremental progress.

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I shocked my CNS very hard today. I spent 45mins on just bench press today. When I was done I was shaking, exhausted and arms ached all over. I hit my CNS very very hard. I got home ate 1lb of Greek yogurt with protein powder. A half hour later 14oz chicken breast, 1 cup rice, I cup veggies. 1.5 hours later 2lbs of cottage cheese. Then I slept. Woke up for work and feel great, no shakes, just a little sore on my chest.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't believe in over training. The body is a wonderful thing and will bounce back fast. I have found that when I push hard and shock my CNS lots of food and rest is what I need. I recover now, in hours instead of days. I know what my body needs and wants to feel better.

When I started bending I bent every single day for over 6 months. I fed my body and rested a lot. My CNS was destroyed, then one day it felt great. The pain was gone and I had conditioned myself. The body will adapt or break. Mine adapts because I feed it and rest.

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Ok. Good stuff and insights. Thanks guys! Chris Rice, you hit it spot on as far as my experience goes also now. We tend to think in weeks, at least I did. Now I think in terms of recovery. I don't care if I don't train two or three days. But when i do I seem to be much more consistent in progress.

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I shocked my CNS very hard today. I spent 45mins on just bench press today. When I was done I was shaking, exhausted and arms ached all over. I hit my CNS very very hard. I got home ate 1lb of Greek yogurt with protein powder. A half hour later 14oz chicken breast, 1 cup rice, I cup veggies. 1.5 hours later 2lbs of cottage cheese. Then I slept. Woke up for work and feel great, no shakes, just a little sore on my chest.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't believe in over training. The body is a wonderful thing and will bounce back fast. I have found that when I push hard and shock my CNS lots of food and rest is what I need. I recover now, in hours instead of days. I know what my body needs and wants to feel better.

When I started bending I bent every single day for over 6 months. I fed my body and rested a lot. My CNS was destroyed, then one day it felt great. The pain was gone and I had conditioned myself. The body will adapt or break. Mine adapts because I feed it and rest.

Read this post carefully as he hit the nail. I think the concept of overtraining is bunk. You are most likely under sleeping and under eating, not over training. If people can condition themselves to run 50 marathons in 50 days, or go through intense military training, us mere mortals arent going to over train.

I did the infamous 8 hour arms workout, then a normal arm workout with my training partners, and finished up with 300 reps with an empty Oly bar (50,50,40,40,30,30,20,20,10,10). I trained normal the day before and the day after and 5 days later did arms again.

Being retired helps, I am able to sleep 8 hours plus get another 2-3 hour nap and I can eat whenever I want.

If you are feeling like your CNS is fried, try charting your sleeping and eating habits.

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My whole opinion on deloading has changed, I ran 5/3/1 for a long time and it had a deload week built into it every three weeks, but now I'm am listening more to my body. I've been squatting heavy for the last 13 weeks without a typical 5/3/1 deload week. What has changed is when I start to feel fatigue is building up I'll dial down the volume or intensity the next workout and by the time the next workout comes around I'm fine. Not sure how long I'll be able to sustain the streak, but I'll find out.

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Instead of a deload try just changing your rep set schemes. Do some super sets, rest pause, time under tension, etc.

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I shocked my CNS very hard today. I spent 45mins on just bench press today. When I was done I was shaking, exhausted and arms ached all over. I hit my CNS very very hard. I got home ate 1lb of Greek yogurt with protein powder. A half hour later 14oz chicken breast, 1 cup rice, I cup veggies. 1.5 hours later 2lbs of cottage cheese. Then I slept. Woke up for work and feel great, no shakes, just a little sore on my chest.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't believe in over training. The body is a wonderful thing and will bounce back fast. I have found that when I push hard and shock my CNS lots of food and rest is what I need. I recover now, in hours instead of days. I know what my body needs and wants to feel better.

When I started bending I bent every single day for over 6 months. I fed my body and rested a lot. My CNS was destroyed, then one day it felt great. The pain was gone and I had conditioned myself. The body will adapt or break. Mine adapts because I feed it and rest.

Read this post carefully as he hit the nail. I think the concept of overtraining is bunk. You are most likely under sleeping and under eating, not over training. If people can condition themselves to run 50 marathons in 50 days, or go through intense military training, us mere mortals arent going to over train.

I did the infamous 8 hour arms workout, then a normal arm workout with my training partners, and finished up with 300 reps with an empty Oly bar (50,50,40,40,30,30,20,20,10,10). I trained normal the day before and the day after and 5 days later did arms again.

Being retired helps, I am able to sleep 8 hours plus get another 2-3 hour nap and I can eat whenever I want.

If you are feeling like your CNS is fried, try charting your sleeping and eating habits.

I believe that is a very good point indeed. When the subject sleep comes up during social conversations @work for example, I hear a lot that most people don't go to bed before 11.00PM. I think that is too late when you need to get up early in the morning for work.

I also have a hard time getting those 8 hours quality sleep in. Big point there. Same with eating. I talk a lot with clients. Lots of schedules. Sometimes I have very long conversations with clients. So it's not very convinient to put a piece of bread in my head while talking to them. Let alone preparing something fresh because I am also a lot on the road. So yes, there is definitely some profit to be made from changes in that. I try it sometimes but after a few weeks, everything seems to fall back to the original ways of doing.

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Geralt this is where you need to cook a few days worth of food. Put food for that day in a container and take it with you. It only takes me 7 minutes to heat my food and eat it. And I eat chicken breast, rice and veggies every 3-4 hours. Sometimes l eat 7-8 eggs or a pound or two of yogurt or cottage cheese to change things up.

Edited by EJ Livesey
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One of my training partners has always had trouble sleeping. I told him to get to the doc and get some Ambien because he cant seem to shut his brain off. He did and he said he feels like a brand new man. No more aches and pains, no more irritability, and his training is skyrocketing. Dont underestimate the power of quality sleep and power naps.

Make your whole weeks worth of meals on sunday and take a cooler with you. When I was working at the prison I didnt have access to a microwave, so I got used to eating stuff cold. It sucks but you have to sacrifice to succeed.

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Everything from sunlight to the beverages you drink can affect the CNS. CNS burnout is a buzzword... using grippers you're much more likely to ''burnout'' the connective tissues of the hand and elbow. If you waited to be 100% to train, then you would only train after you come home after a 3 week vacation.

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I need to be active or doing something on training days. On Saturday's I like to train, but I'm not working on the weekends; When I sit around on the couch watching tv, it ruins my gripper workouts...no matter how much I squat or whatever to warm up. So I try to get up with a purpose on my off from work training days.

And eat a lot, like EJ mentioned. And lots of water makes my hands feel strong.

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I've given some thought on the matter, and brought this up to Eric M. just a week ago.

In my experience my CPU gets fried from two things: deadlifting and grippers. I tend to stumble around for the rest of the day after an especially taxing session of either. Also, for the entire 24 hours following a serious attempt on my #3, I feel like I'm operating at only 50% of my usual mental capacity. Today is such a day.

Chris Rice brings up some excellent points and I can identify with all his observations.

Because I perform my lifts using optimal form and by really studying the movement pattern, I rely comparatively less on my musculature and more on my brain. So I definitely identify as a CNS lifter... But really, most people who put much thought into maximizing their performance might, too.

Yes, grippers are heavily taxing on my CNS though they rely little on my overall strength.

Also, I think I closed my #3 last night. :santa:

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quote name="mudhutmasher" post="621010" timestamp="1419064488"]Yeah i abbreviated wrong on both counts.. Should have been spelled rhabdo. Short for Rhabdomyolysis

I believe you will find this phenomenon much more common in detrained or completely untrained individuals who push too hard too fast. I have been training since I was 12 and even 110 reps with 220 in the squat didnt do it. That was 5 or more reps every minute till I hit 110. Remember...50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Karnazes

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I would like to hijack this thread and say that I'm feeling like my brain activity is still 50%.

That's about 36hrs since I (probably) closed my first #3. Been eating and sleeping and caffeinatjng per usual, but grippers really do throw a wrench in my system. Had to psyche up a lot for a few singles with the added constraint of working with a camera.

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Grippers can be taxing to the CNS for sure when done at max effort levels in trained individuals. I know they are for me. If you ever have seen one of those diagrams that show size of body parts relationally to the ratio of nervous system devoted to that body part you would see that the hands are enormous compared to anything else.

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Grippers can be taxing to the CNS for sure when done at max effort levels in trained individuals. I know they are for me. If you ever have seen one of those diagrams that show size of body parts relationally to the ratio of nervous system devoted to that body part you would see that the hands are enormous compared to anything else.

very cool!

Here is a model of that representation. Cortical Homunculus representation I believe it is called.

cortexman_homunculus_sm_robep.jpg

Edited by acorn
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I think over reaching and overtraining at both the CNS and muscular level are very common and likely most of us have had it – do have it – or will have it at some point. Both EJ and Rick have very valid points that if one does everything perfectly, it can be controlled BUT ……………… how many of us do everything necessary to do so? Rick’s 50 marathons in 50 days guy (while totally incredible) had a crew of people monitoring him and taking care of him in ways none of us have ever (or probably will ever) enjoyed. Daily blood monitoring and all kinds of stuff you and I don’t have – plus years of toughening into the program that led into this extraordinary feat – it took a whole staff of people to do this (it’s a good read about him). If we read about Olympic athletes – we also find a massive support crew and medical staff behind them. Cryro therapy – saunas, daily to twice daily massage – meals cooked for them with the advice of a nutritionist - supplements (both the kind you and I might use and the ones we probably don’t) – a professionally trained coach monitoring each workout to push you or back you off. How many of these things do any of us have? Now if your level of dedication is high enough, and your life style conducive enough, then some of this you can do yourself. But I still contend that “most” of us will not be able to pull it off and still continue our lives as we normally live them. The occasional “deload” of some kind can make up for our less than optimal lifestyles.

I think there is also some confusion as to what constitutes a “deload”? It can be practically anything - a change in routine, rep range - # of sets done – percentages used – day off – week off - month off – and anything in between. Catch the flu, get hurt, and keep pushing – and it’s pretty easy to overdo. Today I “deloaded” in advanceJ. I did 2 sets instead of 3 looking forward to tomorrows hard session of training which will be 4 hours of continuous climbing after a morning aerobic session and test on the Concept 2.

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Lots of interesting insights, thnx for that. It was not directed towards my own training directly, but more to gain general insight. I feel though that it is one of the biggest factors in our beloved hobby lol

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