03/26/2010
Incorporating the Nervous System into Your Training
I have been thinking about this a lot recently and there are some changes occurring in the mindset of a handful of coaches that want maximize the potential of their athletes, and the success that they will have on the field.
When you think of training, either it be specific to the weight room or activities on the field. it breaks into a number of sections based on the energy systems that are required to fuel the activity. If for example you’re training longer distance or muscular endurance then you are on one end of the spectrum. If you are training high intensity and low volume you are on the other end of the spectrum. We know that volume and intensity are inversely related so your ‘true’ maximal effort is much different than your perceived maximal effort based on exhaustion or fatigue, and this is where I have become quite curious in recent months as to the effects of training on the nervous system. The nervous system is basically the chemical/electrical system that controls the signals that are racing throughout the body influencing everything from heat regulation, digestion and sleep to muscular contraction, locomotion and coordination. Based on the stimulus that is presented to the body at any given moment in time dictates what is going to happen and what the reciprocal response to that stimulus will be. For the sake of my curiosity I want to look at the idea of not only nervous system stimulation through training but also the idea of nervous system fatigue.
Since I started athletics it has been pounded in my head that nervous system stimulation as a thrower (hammer) would correlate to long throws in competition and nervous system fatigue would equate to short throws or an inefficient movement pattern. When we look at the first scenario we know that training the nervous system to be dynamic or reactive is more about establishing systems that target the fast twitch muscle type IIA-B fibers as the primary source of work as apposed to their slower oxidizing cousins, the type I slow twitch fibers. To do this we focus on rate of execution, intensity of movement in relationship to an established 100 percent maximum and duration of activity. By training within certain parameters we establish a system where the majority of work is within a certain scope of field or window. For example if I wanted to train the squat to effect the nervous system it would be low repetitions at a weight that will maximally activate the motor units of the selected body parts, but also with enough rate of acceleration as not to be working outside of a specific time under tension or period of work which would start to move away from one energy system towards another. So the actual stimulation of the nervous system is not all that difficult, in fact it’s easy. The problem that I am stuck on is what exactly is the meaning of nervous system fatigue? What does it mean to fatigue the nervous system with your training? I have been told year in and year out that my nervous system was fatigued or shut down when I wasn’t moving as well as I should or on meet day if the ball wasn’t flying as far as it should. In fact there are a lot of athletes that are training around the country and the coach will talk about training in terms of it being nervous system fatiguing and when the body begins to unload or recover the performance will respond accordingly to the rejuvenation of the nervous system. But, what if you don’t understand that the nervous system is affected by more than the weight in your hand or the training routine that you follow? In fact your nervous system is the trigger from the brain to the body to move the muscle and perform the act, but it’s not the structure that actually makes the movement. The movement is the product of muscle, connective tissue and bone. So if you have a fatigued nervous system isn’t it really a fatigued electrical/chemical system? The nervous has become weakened because the body has exhausted its stores of neurotransmitters and it no longer is able to fire the signal as efficiently as it once had. If this is the case it wouldn’t simply be fatigue, but rather a number of odd disturbances through out the body from spasmodic cramping to sleeplessness and even depression and irritability. Things that are quickly rectified through nutrition and rest, but if your diet is garbage and your rest is nonexistent then no matter what type of training you are doing your nervous system will be fatigued. In fact, even when you are peaking you are going to be tired and broken down if your body is having difficulty regulating its neurotransmitters production and function. If you have an acetylcholine deficiency it wouldn’t matter what you were doing in training or who you were trained by… You’re screwed. So when we are telling athletes or we are being told that we are suffering from nervous system fatigue, more times than not we are actually suffering the ongoing effects of muscular fatigue and stress as related to the volume of work that is being preformed during training sessions. Or we have started to develop adhesion in our soft tissue that is preventing the efficient moment of our bodies, but the consciousness of our fascial system is for another time. When you are actually training the nervous system to react, you keep the duration of the sessions short and the stress to the muscular system minimal. You are in a sense feathering the throttle continuously to ensure that you don’t blow the wheels of the car until you get the green light. So the next time that you have deep muscle soreness from a block of workouts that involved sub maximal speeds and inefficient rest times and inadequate hours of recovery before repeat exposures, stop and check to see the progression of your Parkinson’s disease before you start telling everyone that you have systemic depletion of neurotransmitters causing nervous system fatigue.
Derek Woodske
NC#09726
