Over-Training and the Effects on the Central Nervous System (CNS)

Overtraining can harm CNS, leading to hormonal and health issues.

The CNS is essential to athletic improvement and health as it governs all the body’s hormones that schedule growth and repair. Stressing the CNS is likely to short-circuit this critical process.

In this article, we will look at overtraining and CNS fatigue to look at lessons learned and tips on what to do and what to avoid.

Overtraining

One camp (usually old-time endurance athletes or powerlifters) vehemently argues that overtraining and CNS fatigue don’t exist. In their opinion, the game rules are go hard or go home. I’ve seen this many times over my ten years of Coaching; the athletes with little or no faith in a properly structured program constantly overtrain until they get sick, injured, or both.

The other camp believes in it. These people balance training and recovery with a healthy approach to exercise.

Is CNS fatigue due to overtraining simply a case of under-recovering?

Overtraining is relative to the individual, their length of time in the sport, age, and genetic make-up; these may vary from person to person.

Some are born with a higher capacity for training; some theories contribute to mitochondrial (the energy powerhouses in cells) density, higher red blood cell count, hormone levels or their muscle make-up (more fast-twitch fibres than slow-twitch. Regardless of the reason, our work capacities vary across the board for either power or endurance sports. Naturally, tuning in to your body’s genetic preference is vital.

It is apparent work capacity is quite an individual concept – however, we can improve outcomes through proper periodisation, supplementation, rest, recovery tools, nutrition etc.

Training correctly at the right frequency for the correct periodisation consisting of 3 load weeks and a recovery week will lead to a good training base, which would take 7 to 9 months for most athletes. This should be a good guideline for increasing cardiovascular, soft tissue, and CNS conditioning loads. It largely depends on a person’s training history – if they’re newer to exercise, they’re probably more susceptible to overtraining.

So what’s the mechanism – what are overtraining and Central nervous system fatigue (CNS fatigue)?

Overtraining: Training at a duration, intensity, or both rates that the body can’t recover from. This state of overtraining often leads to severe fatigue levels, sickness, injury or both.

CNS Fatigue: CNS fatigue occurs when progressive overload and training have caused a neurotransmitter release beyond your body’s capacity to can’t keep up. It manifests itself in the skills and movement quality decline caused by muscle firing patterns, something like the effects of the flu.

What’s the difference?

Overtraining is relatively straightforward to recover from. By resting and recovering, plus proper nutrition, you should be able to recover and rebuild your body sufficiently enough to exercise again within five days.

CNS fatigue may take more time to recover from. It is often caused by more complex movement exercises such as strength sports, where the training is done by approaching maximum levels of strength. It can also be caused by excessive duration, such as Ironman and ultra training. In these cases, recovery may take up to one to two weeks.

CNS Fatigue Symptoms:

• Headaches
• Joint aches
• Poor motor skills – inconsistent execution of skills you
• Lower energy
• Poor sleep quality – disturbed sleep
• Lower motivation
• Flu-like feelings (without the blocked nose)
• Fever
• memory loss and poor concentration
• Lingering muscle fatigue
• Reduced immunity
• Decreased workout performance
• Increased injury frequency
• Tiredness
• Wake up feeling sleepy
• Craving junk food
• Frequent hunger
• Slower recovery from illness or injury

How to spot CNS fatigue

overtrained and central nervous system fatigue goes hand in hand. Be mindful that as training loads increase (intensity or duration), you will likely be heading towards CNS fatigue.

One crucial marker to watch is HRV (heart rate variability). Fortunately, this can be monitored by many devices these days. Athletes who regularly know this method will quickly see if their HR is higher than usual in the morning and can adjust their training accordingly.

Recovering from Overtraining

Stop exercising. At most, go for a walk.

Stretch – stay supple.

Use recovery tools such as compression boots or biomats; they are proven to assist CNS recovery.

Rest, focus on sleep quality and quantity of sleep.

Drink herbal tea before bed.

Visit a health spa – use the sauna and contrast therapy – these improve circulation and detoxification, which are essential for CNS reset.

Eat high protein, unprocessed foods, natural – rice, potatoes, and carbohydrates with plenty of fruit and vegetables.

Supplement with multi vitamins.

Stay hydrated.

What not to do

Don’t Carry on training, even at a lower intensity (hello, injury, hello sickness); if you are too tired to train, listen to your body!

Don’t Use a percussion gun – this will create more CNS trauma

Don’t Just eat more – fuel is not your problem; you’re out of order in the central nervous system, and hormones, soft tissue, energy systems, etc.

Recovering from CNS Fatigue

CNS fatigue is a little different to overtraining and needs to be treated as such – for example. You may suffer cold-like symptoms without a runny nose, aches and pains and difficulty with body temperature fluctuations.

Stop exercising. Walk if you must, but keep it short; this is not a training day.

Increase quality protein consumption.

Eat some carbohydrates, e.g. a palm-sized portion, twice per day.

Take Omega 3’s. These greatly supplement recovery.

Get blood tests done; you may be short of critical trace elements, or your thyroid hormones may be out of balance. For example, The Thyroid is your body’s metabolic regulator; many athletes with CNS stress put weight on despite plenty of exercises and a healthy diet, their energy levels plummet, and they are depressed and can’t imagine why. It’s likely to be a thyroid imbalance.

Stay hydrated.

Keep your water bottle handy and monitor your urine for signs of dehydration; yellow if a sign of dehydration, and clear is good news.

When putting together your training programme, hopefully with your coach, consider these –

If your goals are ambitious, give yourself more training blocks before the significant event and allow more deloading cycles.

Your training history – new athletes should keep training cycles short (3-4 weeks) and include rest or deload weeks. Seasoned athletes may go for 5-6 weeks. Appropriate load – As a coach, I would steer the ambitious first-year athletes from full Ironman distance to Olympic or 70.3. This keeps the goals within the healthy reach of an athlete, prepared to put the work in.

Age is a factor, and recovery cycles are undeniably increasing as we age; don’t be in denial and try to cheat this reality.

Exercise nature – if it’s strength-based, you’ll need regular rest weeks. Ideally, every 3-4 weeks.

Adaptation: Your body needs time to adapt to the training loads, so set your sights on monthly and quarterly targets rather than session by session; a long-term view is healthy.

Endurance workouts that last a more extended period of one hour and beyond – require a longer recovery time – give them a chance and be aware that more extended exercise will deplete trace elements to a greater degree than short bursts and feed them well. Sleep well.

Whenever you try a sport with new movement patterns, remember that regardless of your training history, you are essentially a newbie, so learning new skills and asking your body to do things it hasn’t done before, overtraining and not taking adequate rest, is a recipe for disaster!

Checking heart rate variability can give you some indications; however, waking up tired, irritable, and craving high-calorie food are promising signs of overtraining.

Accelerate recovery with additional help and incorporate recovery tools and methods into your routine. These could include saunas, compression boots, biomats and contrast therapy. Choose strategies that are convenient and time efficient.

Remember – you are not Superman. Exercise is medicine, don’t overdose on either intensity or duration before you are ready to; trust the process and respect your body.