WHAT IS CNS FATIGUE really?

Expert Discussion Advanced Sports Sciences
101

[QUOTE=james colbert
it is the adaptation as a whole of the organism. this is very important to the deficiet of 5-7%. basically the longer you can hold this level of over training the greater the supercompensation. this was knowledge was gained through talking to its creator and user of 30 years and personal expereience. if you could hold the level for a year people would probably think you had been replaced by your twin who had been trianing for the past 6 years to be an elite athelte.[/QUOTE]

I totally agree with you that the adaptation of the whole organism is the target for training. The parts might lose their meaning when seen in the light of the whole.

I am interested to know who the creator is of the fatigue-adaptation kind of model you refer to (I have seen the fatigue numbers (3-10%) along the writings of Jay Schroeder and DB Hammer). Did they take the numbers from the same person you are referring to?

Looking forward to your reply

Regards
Stefan

102

Why does one need to do split sessions (if I understand you correctly: two workouts on one day)?

I would try to figure it out empirically, by experimentation. Record your sprinting times (since that is where you are after I guess). Maybe you need to take more days off to recover. Maybe you need less than a day.

It is possible that recovery is an individual thing. Taking the 48-72 hour recovery period might be a crude one. If applied to a whole group (mixed elites and sub-elites) then to some the numbers might be applied and to others not.

Another thing I would like to adress is the following: why is there a need to do sprint training + weights on 3 days on the week. Is this always better than a program that does only single sessions, keeping the same ration of weight to sprint training (thereby reducing training volume during a whole week).

I have seen some quotes by Charlie that seems to point to the fact that he chooses for the middle solution: high intensity training with sufficient overall training volume. I might be incorrect in this one.

What is the minimum of training that we need? [Or do our athletes get laizy when this is our approach]

103

Some good points!
Could you clarify the following though?

What weekly layout would you suggest as a possible alternative?
Thanks!

104

In general I would prefer singles, something like this

proposal for a two-week cycle, two months before start of season

  1. sprint training max velocity
  2. one day off
  3. sprint training max velocity
  4. weight training
  5. special endurance
  6. one day off
  7. weight training
  8. sprint training acceleration
  9. one day off
  10. sprint training max velocity
  11. weight training
  12. special endurance
  13. one day off
  14. one day off

repeat cycle

Any comments?

My question: why is there a need to train a high volume in total? Isn’t the main goal just simply running 100m faster?

regards
Stefan

105

this message will hopefully address both of your posts. it is impossible to train ever conceviable postion so what i do is train that which is most effecient. i simply get into a position contracting the proper muscles and hold.
seems simple but i find the motor leanring to be phenominal i can literally tell the difference in my day to day life and subsequent workouts. there is a certain way for msucels to contract that will be mechanically most effeceint. its a bit more complex than that but that is it basically.

let me start witih saying that DB HAMMER and JAY SCHROEDER are NOT the same person, they do NOT have the same methedologies. and in my opinion DB HAMMER is a joke. what i believe happened is someone who realized the popularity and mystique around jay, and capatilized on this be creating the persona. on the surface they may seem the same but ive meet jay, ive talked to him on the phone various times, ive emailed with him for years and his stuff is so far beyond db hammer its not even funny. everything jay does is customized to the individual and his understanding of how training effects the body is unsurpassed in my opinion. lol you can tell that i subscribe to hsi theroy. but yes jay is where i learned about the 5-7% defeciet.

106

Hello James, thanks for your reply.

Is this fatigue based training something Jay developed? Do you know its rationale?

I am really interested in the fundamentels. I hear people speaking about that one needs to train this way. I have however not seen a justification of this idea (besides anecdotical evidence). I am not saying that it does not work. I am trying to get a grip on it and explore it to its full potential

Regards,
Stefan

107

hey stefan,
the model isnt really “fatigued” based so to speak. it based mainly on the basic concept of supercompensation ie apply a stressor to an organism and it will adapt in time. perodization as it is used in the US (a time for hypertrophy, max strength, and power development) is only a fraction of the program organization used by the soviets and eastern bloc countries. in realitiy perodization as most in the US now it was an aspect of training employeed by coaches to achieve moderate but predictable results because of system they worked under, they recieve a stipend based on the performance of their athletes, better performance more money. so perodization was a way to insure their families ate. perodization allows for a very narrow peaking of abilities usually only one to a few competitions. russians developed a system in which plays off of the theroy of supercompensation. they induced a defeciet in an athlete and the athlet ethen supercomepsated to a new level of performance. the defeciet here is key and the organism prepardness looked somewhat like a check mark with the bottom point of the check mark being the lowest defeceit acheived in the given training cycle (the check, the defeciet and the subsequent supercompensation). jay took this a step further and and experimented by maintaing the defeciet and he found that the organism upon being pulled out of a long defeciet supercompensated to a much greater level and the longer the defeciet is maintained the greater the supercompensatory effect. so i cant really provide you a case study or a reasearch study demonstrating this as it is employeed by jay and those under his influence.

108

There’s an old saying. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
But first, you have to show the mouse you caught!
Where are the world records created by this philosophy?
1: Installing a movement pattern is only half the battle. The rate of the movement pattern is the other half. The conditions must be present to allow that to happen.
2:Prolonging the deficit creates a greater supercompensatory point- right up to the moment that supercompensation stops and systemic failure sets in. This is so well understood that single period training was dropped by every shophisticated state system 40 years ago, including Russia (Borzov competed indoors).

109

hey charlie,
first let me say this about jay, he is a different kinda animal. where most coaches in the industry gauge their system by how many world records are broken how man national, and international athletes they have traiend to success jay on the other hand gauges his system on how far he can push human performance for the individual. not everyone is going to be the next ben or the next sanders. so yes he is concerned with producing elite athletes but he perfers to work with elite people, by this i mean willing to work to achieve the fullest out of their bodies. hopefully these people also have the ability to be elite on an international level. he traisn 70 year old men to deadlift (one of which deadlifts 600lbs) recreational athletes and ofcourse hes becomeing pretty big as a trainer for the NFL. another thing… most people cant handel jays shit … period. he does bench upwards of 12 times a week. he does do plyometirc type excercises everyday often multiple times a day. compared to that going into the gym doing a comple sets of this excercise and that sprinting on the same day or the off day is nothing compared wut jay has his athletes do. and they get rapid amazing results i kno because i expereinced them. i trained anywhere from 1 to 5 hours a day depending on what needs to get done. we all know about adam, everyone would admit he is physically a freak not unlike ben or others, but they have athletes that make some of adams gains look weak. anyway on to your points.

  1. your right charlie instaling a movement pattern is only one part of the training. but the way he does it has a direct transfer to dynamic movement. honestly to understand it you have to do it. i kno thats a horrible answer but really you got to do it.

  2. i think you misunderstood me its not a continuous defeciet as in it doesnt continue to deterorat ethe system. the idea is to hold the system in a a slight state of overtraining (5-7%). the longer this can be held the greater the supercompensatory effect. ive never heard of this type of system so im not sure what your statement about borzov means please elaborate.
    thanks charlie

110

Oh Come on!! I’ve heard that bullshit about athletes for 30 years. I was told when I started: "Charlie, if you have a big enough group with decent athletes, not great but at least decent, and at the end of one year you don’t have anyone running 10:50, you’re a bad coach. Brutal but honest.
To suggest that a guy with the colossal self-promotion of Jay Schraeder hasn’t had any record holders because he didn’t have the talent to work with is ludicrous. All that benching. All those plyos. All that promo. Where are the records?
1: “Dynamic” doesn’t mean fast. To move fast, you need the conditions in place: Appropriate rest to set the necessary muscle tone. Once that high performance is executed, you then need the appropriate time before it can be repeated or bettered. You can repeat average or even pretty good results over and over all the time, but to move to great required respect for principles of recovery and the recognition of the difference between muscular and nervous system recovery.
The amount of work done will depend entirely on the individual’s requirement to advance his performance. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.
2: Deficit mean deficit. The continuation of this condition for prolonged periods will usually result in the opposite of what is hoped for and will never, ever result in a world record.
I mentionned Borzov because he was one of the earlier Europeans to recognize the value of double or triple periodization and the need to see where he was competition-wise before it was too late to adjust. Hence, he entered indoor competitions like the Americans.
Along these same lines, Borzov said after his double Olympic victory: “I wish to thank my coaches for never asking more of me in training than I was able to produce throughout my career.”
Sound like a Schraeder promo? Hardly!

111

I tried to make this to a one short text: I failed!

Short summary:

  • Installing movement patterns in isolation has too little carry-over to technical events to be useful (if being a major part of any training regimen).
  • There is not enough time for prolonged state of overtraining (5-7%) - despite possibly better supercompensation - when technical events are the main focus and competition schedules are fixed.
  • Still, technical events demand periodization (small bursts of supercompensation) in order to progress during the training year.

Long text:

Let’s take the triple jump as an example: Despite an athlete being able to perform a massive number of drop jumps (from high altitudes) every day, and still being healthy after a number of months… it doesn’t mean anything unless sufficient time is spent doing the actual event and especially trying to make the transition from running into the hop as natural as possible. The same goes for training in extreme joint positions: The only position worth mentioning here – the impact in the triple jump is higher than any trained ability can handle if joint position is off – is a position where minimal speed is lost and maximal motion of the free leg and arms can travel (usually hips up + arms back = arch, keeping the impact-leg as straight as possible); riding rather than fighting. The important thing is to reach those positions, not necessarily the ability to work from those positions – that usually takes care of itself.

Unless running into the hop is smooth, and favourable positions (especially during the transition from the hop to the step) are reached, there’s very little any particular plyometric exercise or any extreme-joint-angle-exercise can have. Very little! The carry-over is not a given, unless much of potential practise time is spent doing the actual event. Moreover, we know that triple jump is rather taxing on the CNS (especially with higher velocities), so there’s not much in the plyometric or extreme-angle department do between these hard sessions. So what becomes of their value then?

…Well, as performance level goes up, it usually means the approach speed is higher which means the transition becomes more difficult and overall intensity more taxing, hence more relative time spent doing the triple jump and recovering from that, and consequently lesser time is spent on general plyos (time and recovery will not allow more). Because increasing speed and ability to handle that speed technically in the jump becomes more difficult, therefore we need to be in better shape (since everything is happening a bit faster). Hence, we need to taper a little in order to be able to produce and handle such intensity increase (periodization). Not to “put food on the table” but in order to make such an increase in intensity manageable in the first place. The value of isolated plyos done previously is much simpler than “learning correct motor patterns”; it’s in their value of super compensation (peaking) when their volume is decreased. The correct motor patterns are trained during the actual event itself, not in the gym.

Ironically, when we approach world level performance, it usually means an approach speed over 10, closing in towards 10.6m/s at the board, then, impact seems to lessen during the whole jump because the hop seems to be more of an extension of the run (still around 6.5m in distance) and the other impacts (only two) are very fast and looks easy (because of the favourable positions). Breaking powers at impact seems to lessen (in terms of measured Newton) when performance grows better. Overall force is higher (Watts)… but it’s a result from increased horizontal velocity and favourable joint positions (overcoming the impact faster). Consequently, trained abilities reached in the plyometric department have lesser consequence for the distance reached – other factors become more important than brute force absorption. It’s the speed and the position in the jump that makes this possible, not the stretch reflex, or motor patterns trained in isolation. Those issues come into play only when more rudimentary issues are sufficient enough: For some jumpers this means never; and for the absolute top just a little bit.

112

but jay does have many graet ahtletes. so maybe you shouldnt aske where are the records but where are the graet atheltes. hes got a bunch in the NFL, a bunch in college. hes helps an assload of people get schoalriships or make it big. charlie your only focusing on one aspect of his training not all athletic performance is based on how fast you can run a 100m. come on man this guy trains little kids if they are willing to bust their ass and thats the way he likes it. and self promotion, jeez dud a website and a dvd like 5 years ago that was actually a promotion for adam not jay. jay doesnt even train you unless hes seen film of you. if he finds u wanting he gives you something to do to get you to the point where you are prepared to train under him. charlie how many years did you coach before you got ben. how many bens have you had since. he is a freak an anomoly (in a good way). so to state that your ideas are no good becasue you dont have a record holder is ludicrous evaluate the system based on the results achieved on the individual level. how far did an individual advance. its like asking a gourmet chef how many cooking awards have you won before taking a bite of his BLT. im not try to tell you jays way is the only way just trying to promote thought.

  1. dynamic to jay does mean fast. thats all it means there is no slow movements. even when they max. there is no repetition of average performance only maximal over and over and over again believe it or not but ive seen it. the principles on which you base your training ie wut is required for rest and recovery ratically differ from jays simple becasue how you train. most people do not train in a manner that allows maximal training over and over. ive said it over and over but people seem to skim over this , he trains his atheletes to be able to handle these loads via deinhibtions of the CNS and a reprograming of the neural/muscular response to fatigue. it can be don, just not the way that most of you train. and that is not a slight at any of you im just saying there is different methods of training.

  2. if the defeciet is maintained at 5-7% then u dont expereince the problems you describe becasue you dont dip into the recovery abilities of the body to such a great to degree as to generate a maladaptive response. im sure that the charliefrancis system would never ever result in a world record… right before ben broke the 100m record. again charlie i dont understand you borzov refrence, though jay learned a bit from borzov’s coaches i in no way stated that their philosophy is the same or that what he uses now in training is the same as what borzov used.

113

simply, your thinking inside the box. your basing you assertion off of commonly perscribed training regements. jays stuff doesnt fit in the box thats probably why a lot of people have problems rationalizing his training from the outside. but there are things that are going on that most people dont see with jay. thats probably the main reason why people think DB Hammer and jay are the same people or have similar methodolgies, when in truth they are so different it slike night an day.

114

I think more coaches need to hear stuff like that. You don’t get anywhere by talking about how great your system is then making excuses when the great results never come.

Acknolwedging the fact that you suck can be a great strength. Greater than any self proclaimed guru status.

115

I fail to find an argument here. However, thinking “inside” or “outside” the box should be of no consequence when the main principle is to achieve the highest possible absolute performance level in a single event at some particular moments in time. The “box-argument” is usually futile… basically it means “my box is better than your box” or something close.

If the event in question is triple jump, then, of course, one should look and plan ones training regimen according to the requirements of that particular event – which includes realizing very rudimentary facts of what variables are most important in improving absolute performance herein. Let’s call this the “triple jump box” if you like.

Basically, my impressions is that you have put forward a kind of universal training approach – which in it’s own right is interesting, but to a lesser extent practical for the requirements of very specific events. I’m simply pointing out the practical problems here, nothing else. And of course, we are moving away from CNS issue so I prefer to leave it here.

In short, and back to the topic: My objections is very simple: 1) the requirement of a particular field event is such that it makes little sense to put too much effort in isolated movements (extreme joint angles) or plyometrics – the limited carry-over is just not worth it (time is short anyhow); 2) CNS requirement for speed training, jump training and basic weights in the same micro cycle is already high enough, hence any extra work in this area can become detrimental from the perspective of performance. When something goes in… something must come out. Again, perhaps I’m trapped in my box and fail to see the possibilities of putting more in without taking something out… but I have not seen anything convincing so far.

116

James,

First off, comparing Archuleta to Ben Johnson can only be done in terms of their freakish strength. Ben on the one hand was a world record holder and arguably the best 100m runner ever. Archuleta is a good, perhaps great strong dback. Yes he is strong, very strong but this has not made him the best. Also Archuleta was good even back in highschool before Jay got him. And the 270 or whatever they said he benched was when Jay got him as I think sophmore or junior year in high school so his numbers were still pretty good for a highschool kid, obviously Jay helped out a lot I mean you cant argue his numbers even if it was over an almost 10 year period the results are still there.

That is about the extent of any critique I have the rest are just basic questions. If Jay’s system is so good why doesnt he have more Archuleta like stories or does he? Could you name some big lifters he has?

You say most people cant handle Jay’s stuff but you say that most people that he teaches are the young, recreational, and 70 yr olds. Just wondering do you think it is because these people cant wear out their cns as fast which is the reason kids and elderly can handle the workout but not elite athletes?

Also what is the point of making a workout that people cant handle? Isnt it the goal to customize workouts to to get the most out of people, instead of push them away from your training?

What kind of monitoring does Jay do for his athletes, obviously keeping them in a defeciet can become dangeriously close to overtraining. Clearly the lifting in itself will show the 3-7% deficiet but are any other measures taken to show that there is no overtraining occuring, and do overtraining injuries occur often in this system?

I dont know if or what type of speed work Jay does but if he does, does he find the reduced speed while in the deficiet hurts the athletes as surely this would have a tool on any speed work I would imagine. Also wouldnt an extended defeciet hinder plyos and other explosive work, thats a question not a statement.

Sorry for this book also could you piece together maybe some type of typical weekly program that would be used by an athlete, preferably sprinter, but if not maybe football player just to get a better grip of the program, obviously each program would be individualized but maybe just a generalized plan.

Thanks for any info you can give, looking back this might have sounded a little harsh, that is not at all what I intended as I would very much like to hear your perspective on these things as they have been bothering me a bit, and any info you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the posting, you definatley bring a lot of discussion to this site.

117

Many have produced scholarship ahtletes, Olympians, Soccer players, NFL athletes, etc, myself included.
If your program is at the leading edge of the performance spectrum then, given enough athletes and enough time, and Jay fits that criteria, you MUST produce at least one who is at the head of the class.
How many years did I coach before I got Ben? Exactly one. He was 14 years old and 93 pounds when he came out with his older brother and he didn’t send in a film so I could decide if he was worthy.
In fact I never started with any of my top ultimate performers at times under 11 for the boys or 12 for the girls. Nobody handed me athletes on a plate.

118

If your athletes went through some sort of pre-evaluation testing including psychological, physiological and biomechanical…blah de blah assessments you would be able to determine the winners and the losers.

Dave Collins mentioned:
“why would he invest in a talented athlete that is an idol git!”.

It would have saved so much of your time training, programing, working with your athletes. Hell you could have gone down to the track and sat in a deck chair and echoed run forest run!!

119

The pre-evaluation would have save me the time I wasted on the low-enders- like BEN and Angella! Get the biggest group you can handle and that way you don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.

120

BTW why would you pre-test anyone on biomechanics? Isn’t that what coaches fix?