Do you ever consider the energy costs of your neurological system when you plan or program your workouts or those of your athletes and clients? If not, read on! If so, move on. You know this stuff.
For those of you going, “Huh?” every exercise or program uses energy. This energy is used to fuel your various physiological systems including your neurological system. Few people ever take this into account when designing a workout. Instead, they focus on the muscles being used and the motions being performed. However, the amount of energy being used for neural activity must also be taken into account. The funny thing is that even without knowing or calling it such, most advanced trainers and athletes already do this.
OK, what does this mean to you? When you’re performing an exercise routine or programming a micro-, meso-, or macro-cycle, consider how taxing each exercise/stage is so that you can recover adequately. Ignoring this leads to much of the overtraining seen in high-end athletics. If you’ve ever competed, you know that a competition is much more draining than a training session even if the activities are the same. Why? Adrenaline, nerves and focus are all costs to the neurological system. In the same way, squats have a higher cost than a leg press (as a result of the balance, coordination and focus needed).
For example, deadlifts are very taxing to the nervous system. Even with high reps, they pose a great drain.
However, even though they are grueling, Prowler sprints don’t demand the same cost to the nervous system.
How can you use this? The best answer is always simple. Don’t rely completely on any training template to tell you the number of recovery days or the exercise selection. Consider what the neural cost is of the exercises performed and use this to determine the recovery time or next training session. If the program you have calls for a number of heavy Olympic lifts and the accessory motions are deadlifts with a bar, you aren’t going to be ready for heavy leg training for close to a week. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t train at all. It just means that you need more time to recover from that workout. Your next workout should focus more on single limb movements and core work. More energy was needed from all of your systems to perform the heavy explosive work, so more time is needed to recover.
Taking the neural component into account, you also wouldn’t want to program a heavy, explosive, upper body day close to the more taxing leg day. The upper body muscles are ready, but the neurological system isn’t. Powerlifters have used this for decades without talking much about it. They limit their “heavy” training sessions to two or so per week. Other workouts may or may not be performed, but they aren’t as neurologically draining. The conjugate system made excellent use of this. The max effort day was alternated with a speed day allowing sufficient recovery of the neurological system. I think tailoring each system to the recovery speed of the individual athlete is critical though.
Take some time to consider this approach when you’re writing your next workout/cycle. You might be surprised how your normal programming loo
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Eric Patterson is the lead trainer at Custom Fit, a private training studio in Evansville, Indiana. His powerlifting past led him to three silvers in world competition and five national titles. His current fitness goals are overall fitness focused around Olympic lifts, power lifts, Strongman, and kettlebell work. Eric can be reached at epatterson@cfpt.us and via his training blog at www.integratedsystemsfitness.com. 
looks like the end of the article got chopped off
Good article. Many trainees don’t take into account the nervous system and soley focus on the muscular system and to some extent the endocrine system. Its a shame, because the nervous system is the governing system of the body, and controls all other systems!
I have to disagree however that prowler sprints aren’t very taxing. Of course this really depends on how hard someone pushes themself while pushing. It can be highly individual and a lot can depend on the athletes’ conditioning, hormones, age and training experience. In my personal experience, prowler sprints can be very draining, and are difficult to recover from, especially if the trainee isn’t in the best condition. This seems to hold true with any type of HIIT as well.
With training experience comes adaptions to the nervous system as well. This is where most strength gains come from. I like using phosphatidylserine and glycine as supplements to help lower cortisol, the main stress hormone that gets produced during intense exercise
Yep seems that some of it did not post, shame was shaping up nicely.
I do something like this. I like to squat everyday, but I’ve found that it’s too draining to go all out on back squat every day. This is why I cycle the types of squats that I do. I’ll cycle low bar powerlifter style back squats, front squats, high bar olympic squats, and overhead squats. These exercises use different muscles and also different loads based on their relative difficulties (overhead squats are inherently light, front squats medium, and low bar heavy). This way I can squat everyday without overtraining problems.
How would you adjust recovery time for each individual without falling into “instinctual training”, that is, training certain movements when that individual “feels” recovered?
Also, nutrition is a huge component in neurological recovery. The brain needs enough carbs, especially on a caloric deficit.
It is important to note that in periodization cycles that a week of active rest is important to aid in recovery and restoration of the body.
Note on cortozol: High levels of cortozol prevent protein synthesis and this can result in catabolic effects
@Ashley you could use something like TRAC as it has a CNS component to the test. That way you can tell precisely when you have or have not recovered neurologically.
The thing is that everybody is different. It might take some people a week to recover from heavy deadlifts. Most people recover faster than that. But the exact time of recovery is dependent on the loads and volumes used, the exercises, and then some intangible individual differences as well. That’s why I have found a test to be the best thing in determining overall recovery for an individual.