Scenario: A guy works out 7 days a week, utilizing weight training and light plyometrics each day. By the end of the week, he is nearly dead. However, he takes the next 2 - 3 weeks off and allows his CNS to fully recover.
Gains: Phenomenal.
Wouldn’t you agree?
Depends on training age as well as manyyyyy other factors.
However 2-3 weeks off totally doing nothing will lead to detraining.
Also if his gains were in fact phenomenal how can this be applied to a real life situation in sport year round? It really can’T be.
hardhitter, good post!!! I often wonder the same types of things, you would think that beating yourself up and resting would cause great supercompensatory gains, and for most it probably does but one problem I have though of that may occur is, when you take so much time off form lifiting or running , whatever and you go back your technique , the feel of heavy weight (motor patterens, ect. ) may not be as good due to lack of practice… I think movement, lifts all that stuff is not only done by strength and power but also movement technique which is learned by a lot of repetitions of that particular movement. By taking so much time off you do not train these movements…some strength coaches (db, schroder) have talked about trying to maintain a 3-6% overtraining level, and schroder seems to feel that the longer you can maintain this percent in training the better the supercompensatrory returns will be later. Supertraining talks about Supercompensaty (Selye’s Theory) saying there are 3 stages alarm/resistance/exhaustion then supercompensation…the fun part is trying to figure out how to work this system for yourself and keep making positive returns…I hear so often from books and trainers that the body is such an adaptive machine, if the body is such an adaptive machine why can we not beat it up constantly and see returns, of course there would be a dip a in performance but wouldn’t the body eventually adapt to this increased amount of work or load or whatever?? Maybe that is what is going on behind the maintainence of the overtraining theory in 3-6 ??? Maybe the thought is that is we beat up the body for a long period of time but do not beat it up too badly, the gains may be more permanen due to the fact that you learned how to operate in an overtrained state for so long??? NOt sure of that makes sense 
??? Not really sure just sparking some thoughts !!!
Great ideas asd.
Hardhitter,
If you are talking about complete rest (doing absolutely no work) then asd is right in that the strength gains may be present, but the motor engrams would not. In the same respect, QUICK is absolutely correct in that at such a long period of rest, detraining will occur.
Too many athletes are still under the assumption that more is better. They feel they must “beat themselves up” every day in the gym or on the field to get better. When lifting weights, most people don’t think that they will benefit unless they get the “pump”. Bodybuilders are the only athletes that need the “pump” during every workout. Recovery and regeneration are crucial when training for sport, so a degree of rest is a must. The workout after a high load workout should be a light intensity, light volume workout, unless you are concentrating your loading. This will augment the long term training effect and prevent the body from detraining and will continue to stimulate the motor engrams.
Now I am not DB or Jay, but what I THINK they are refering to, when mentioning the 3-6% overtraining, is the decrease in work capacity following a high volume/ high intensity loading. The longer the depression, the greater the spike of supercompensation. But, most athletes are unable to withstand prolonged minimal overtraining, and that is when the adverse effects kick in leading to loss of work capacity or injury.
You hit it right on when you said:
“the fun part is trying to figure out how to work this system for yourself and keep making positive returns”
Everyone is different, and so you must determine the appropriate duration to sustain the dip in work capacity before adverse effects occur.
The body is extremely adaptable, but it can only handle a given amount of stress in a concentrated amount of time. If a rubberband was adaptable like our bodies you would have the perfect example. Small stretches on the rubberband stimulate small adaptations with minimal recovery. Big stretches onthe rubberband cause more damage to the structures, so the recovery is longer, but the adaptations are bigger (leading to the abaility to stretch the rubberband longer and with more force). Now if you stretch the rubberband BEYOND it’s elastic limit, complete failure of the structures will occur and the rubberband breaks in half. This is how overtraining can hurt or help your fitness level. Small stress may not cause overtraining, high stress may cause the 3-6% (or other arbitrary number) overtraining, and maximal stress will lead to overtraining and/or injury.
Good stuff Firebird!!! If these theories are correct would it be erronous to (if you had younger athletes) train them hard after they have recieved a solid base of training…by kind pushing them to their extreme’s maybe a bit over when they are younger, they may see their performance drop a bit but in the long term planning would it not be more beneficial? By giving the young athlete this exposure to high load high intensity they may take a few years to really improve but if supercompensation takes effect when they do improve it will be extreme…is this a good idea or bad idea ( I am not planning on doing this to anyone but I am interested in everyone’s thoughts on the topic!!!) I think a main problem with doing this would be injury but if that could be avoided then would these types of methods be betterin the long run for youngsters!!( So what if they are not the best in pee-wee right???)
Also if you continually stress the system more and more what I mean in you are always lifting heavy or always sprinting fast and doing it often would some form of compensation eventually occur or would the lack of different stimuli cause permenant stagnation??? Kind of like the story of MILO, where he lifted an ox or something everyday since he was little and then as he grew so did the ox yet he was still able to lift it…progressive overload but for the long term maybe??? I do not think this is the most efficient way to train but just trowing stuff out there. ( A better example, if you could bench 300 lbs for like 3 reps, and you decided to just throw a bench in your room and hit 300lbs 1rep a couple times a day everyday for a month…would you increase your reps with this weight or would you get stronger??? My grandfather was a strong dude, he used to bale hay, toss it up into rafters, he never changed the load but yet he was extremely strong, just from lifting crap all day…any thoughts ideas…sorry for the ramble
PEACE! 
First, about training youth athletes:
I see no need to train a young athlete for absolute strength. You stated that your concern with this is the risk of injury, and you are absolutely correct. There is one important factor that you must consider when training young athletes, and that is the fact that they are still developing. The optimal period of time to train the nervous system and build motor engrams is pre-puberty. This is the time to take advantage of this. It is no coincident that pee-wee athletes tend to progress into great athletes later in life. Coordination and dexterity should be built and refined in the stages before the athlete begins puberty. The imature body is so suseptible to stress that I wouldn’t recommend initiating any degree of overtraining or supercompensation, due to the injury risk.
As for your second topic:
Our bodies adapt and resist stress, so we must continually vary the stress to stimulate a training effect. When a plateau has been reached, changing the load will not always be effective enough to stimulate an adaptive response. If this where not true, then world records would be broken everyday, and weight training would be simple. Varied methods and means are needed to keep the training effect stimulated. As for your Grandfather, the weight of the hay bales stays fairly constant. His body adapted to the stimulus over time, and there was no need for his work capacity to increase because he was able to perform the given task without causing stress to his body. If the hay bales increased in weight, then a training effect will occur and he would get stronger from the new stimulus.
As you can see, I tend to ramble as well.
Firebird wrote “As you can see, I tend to ramble as well.”
Yeah but it is informative ramble, you can never have too much of that!!! 
That is unless you are in World Music class and the professor thinks everyone wants to hear about her recital last weekend until 10 minutes after class should be let out.
dude verbal diahrea or the in the scientific world (verbalus Diaheraus) is a terrible think I have teachers like this as well but World Music sounds like a doozey, I myself spit a lot of verbal diahrea it must be something we ate! 