Cns

[murrie]

Hi all,
question here. The "cns" is referred to often in training discussions. I know what the c,n and s stand for but could someone please explain the concept to me in simple, laymans terms? When you speak of "taxing the cns" and something being "hard on the cns" could you elaborate? What physical or other effects (symptoms) are exhibited when the cns is affected?
thx,
murrie

[Mr.City]

Central Nervous System

[PMDL]

When you speak of "taxing the cns" and something being "hard on the cns" could you elaborate?

It's mainly to do with very hard mental efforts.

If you've ever stayed up all night studying, or made a really long drive, think about how you've felt afterwards. You didn't really do anything physical, but you feel beat and wore out anyway.

You get similar effects when you really work yourself up for heavy attempts, cause of "meet adrenaline". In a PL meet, you're only doing nine lifts, but it drags on so long and you're so worked up that you'll feel completely wiped out afterwards.

Sometimes for days or even weeks.

What physical or other effects (symptoms) are exhibited when the cns is affected?

Mainly you'll just be completely drained. You may feel fine physically (no soreness or anything like that), but you'll probably have no motivation to lift; and even if you do, and go to the gym anyway, you'll just feel like you've got no juice in your system. Lifts will be slow and feel harder than they should.

If you try any kind of speed-related work or skill-dependent activity, you'll probably suck at it.

[murrie]

Thanks PMDL-this is helpful. It explains things. That is how I feel after deadlifting and doing PR on squats. Its like I am in a "fog" and it lasts for a
good while. My hubby thinks it is because I'm not breathing right during the
lifts but I don't quite agree. This type of training sure is a heck of a lot more
demanding than the bodybuilding training I used to do.

Thx,
Murrie

It's mainly to do with very hard mental efforts.

If you've ever stayed up all night studying, or made a really long drive, think about how you've felt afterwards. You didn't really do anything physical, but you feel beat and wore out anyway.

You get similar effects when you really work yourself up for heavy attempts, cause of "meet adrenaline". In a PL meet, you're only doing nine lifts, but it drags on so long and you're so worked up that you'll feel completely wiped out afterwards.

Sometimes for days or even weeks.



Mainly you'll just be completely drained. You may feel fine physically (no soreness or anything like that), but you'll probably have no motivation to lift; and even if you do, and go to the gym anyway, you'll just feel like you've got no juice in your system. Lifts will be slow and feel harder than they should.

If you try any kind of speed-related work or skill-dependent activity, you'll probably suck at it.

[Bergie]

PMLD address one aspect of taxing the CNS rather well. However, there is also the pure physical aspect. By that I mean the firing of the motor units and how the linkage between the nervous system and the muscle is effected by a hard workout.

I am not sure, at a physiological level, what is going on but during a hard workout not only are the muscles fatigued but the CNS that controls the muscles is also fatigued. This can be seen easily in the diminished fine muscle control.

As an example. After a upper body workout, try writing your name or simply draw a straight line across a page. You will probably notice that fine muscle control not at its normal level. It's not that your hand is too tired to hold the pen but that your CNS as been impacted making control more difficult.

[matclone]

Weight training is a shock to the nervous system. One classic symptom of overtraining is, as mentioned, shakiness. Another is an elevated heart rate in the morning after waking up. It may also mess with your sleep.

Watch out for new guys in the gym, who don't look fit, and who are in there too long. We had a new guy come in one time, basically deconditioned, who then lifted for a couple of hours. He went home and had a seizure.

[PMDL]

PMLD address one aspect of taxing the CNS rather well. However, there is also the pure physical aspect. By that I mean the firing of the motor units and how the linkage between the nervous system and the muscle is effected by a hard workout.

That's a peripheral effect, not central. Anything that happens outside the brain or upper spinal column is considered peripheral. Central stuff happens mostly in the brain, in the motor regions and particularly in some of the deeper regions responsible for motivation and emotional arousal.

Granted you can't really separate central and peripheral fatigue in a meaningful sense, but that is where the lines are drawn in the research.

[Bergie]

That's a peripheral effect, not central. Anything that happens outside the brain or upper spinal column is considered peripheral. Central stuff happens mostly in the brain, in the motor regions and particularly in some of the deeper regions responsible for motivation and emotional arousal.

Granted you can't really separate central and peripheral fatigue in a meaningful sense, but that is where the lines are drawn in the research.

Point taken. Luckily we are weight training instead of researching.

[nisora33]

That's a peripheral effect, not central. Anything that happens outside the brain or upper spinal column is considered peripheral. Central stuff happens mostly in the brain, in the motor regions and particularly in some of the deeper regions responsible for motivation and emotional arousal.

Granted you can't really separate central and peripheral fatigue in a meaningful sense, but that is where the lines are drawn in the research.

So this sounds like as good a reason as any to remain "chill" on your off days and when you're not training generally? I ask because as you may know I get wound up very easily and I tend to recover very poorly as compared to, well, just about everyone I know.

[PMDL]

Yeah. I'm the worst offender when it comes to not relaxing, with my espresso habit, but that's the idea.

If you ever hear somebody talking about the differences in competition maxes and training maxes, this is the difference. You might be able to get away with a training max (un-psyched, HR remains normal) every day. A competition max, with elevated HR and all the associated SNS activity, is going to wipe you out a lot longer.

That's one reason I like using RPEs so much, because they give you feedback of this nature. 90% is just a number; RPE is the difference between "easy lift" and "holy shit my eyes are on the floor". If you keep the latter infrequent, you can go fairly hard-out the rest of the time.