CNS Recovery

THOSE WHO TRAIN FOR AESTHETICS ARE GENERALLY LESS CONCERNED ABOUT RECOVERY THAN GYM-GOERS WHO TRAIN FOR STRENGTH OR PERFORMANCE. But does training just one muscle group at each workout really insulate your body from the cumulative stress of multiple hard sessions?

- Pedro van Gaalen & Sean Johnson

On the face of it, a week between insane leg training sessions should surely be more than enough time for muscle and connective tissues to be repaired and rebuilt. In a world of overly reductionist views, it’s not surprising that this myth persists within the broader gym community.

If we’re honest, optimal recovery is about more than merely resting individual muscle groups, because your body functions as an integrated system, not as independent, isolated units. While the physical structures of specific muscles and joints can be repaired in as little as 48 hours, a heavy-ass quad and hammie session impacts your neurological and hormonal systems in a very similar way to a monstrous back workout.

SYSTEMIC FATIGUE

Whenever you isolate a body part, you're not only imposing a stress on that specific structural unit, you're also calling on your central nervous system (CNS) to manage a whole host of functions.

These include local factors related directly to the exercise, like your grip on the bar or handle, and the initiation of primary mover muscles to shift the load and execute the movement correctly. The CNS also has to deal with all the general inputs and outputs, like the proprioceptive information needed to maintain balance and coordination.

And that's the case whether you're doing standing lateral raises or ass-to-grass squats. As a result, with every rep, no matter what the exercise, your nervous system gets a little more fatigued. Over time this central fatigue accumulates, and the proverbial battery that powers all human movement can start to run flat.

STRESSED OUT