Not Just a Man's World

How often to train and how to ensure that we do not adversely suffer from fatigue, both muscular and of the central nervous system (CNS), is of vital importance to anyone who designs and implements their own training programs.

A personal perspective

Managing fatigue has become important to me as I have increased the cardio activities for the summer and recently had some very active holidays and weekends while continuing to work at my powerlifting goals.  I don’t want to stop one thing to make way for the other as the powerlifting, cycling and multi-day walks in wild-country are all important to me, but if I overdo it then I may impact on my performance in any of these areas.

Interestingly, the work I did through the early part of the winter on work capacity seems to have had a beneficial effect on the amount of cardio I can now combine with weight training.  In particular, it was noticeable when I was stripping fat in January that I could handle 6 workouts a week. 

As my activity levels continue to increase into the summer, I decided I should share a few articles that I’ve seen more recently training frequency, rest periods and CNS fatigue, all of which I consider to be interrelated.

Getting outdoors more takes it's toll on the body

Big picture – how often to train

An article was posted on Fitness Black Book in February on the issue of training frequency.  There are numerous other articles that have been written on this subject, but this is a nice reader-friendly starting point and highlights my own belief that how often you can train is very personal to the individual.

It is important to remember to look at training frequency alongside your “non-workout” activity levels.  For me in the summer this would include the amount of cycling and walking I do.  Most people who have a natural tendency to be active are likely to find that they are more active when the weather is better in the summer and can therefore reduce the amount of “programmed” exercise they are doing in the gym.

However, I think you also need to take into account the type of activities you do.  The Fitness Black Book article focuses on cardio activities and compensates by reducing the gym-cardio, but if you tend to do some strongman work during the summer months (as I am doing in the garden each weekend), or are undertaking a serious strength-related DIY job (eg. building a rockery) then you may also need to compensate by reducing your strength work by an appropriate amount.  For example, I have dropped my weight training sessions from four to three sessions a week so that I can incorporate a strongman session once a week.

Find out what works for you

Every individual is different.  As a beginner I originally found I could only handle three workouts a week whereas I can now do four sessions each week and I struggle to get any benefit if I consistently do less than this.

Plenty of articles and websites will try to be proscriptive but while there are some broad common sense rules to apply (for example, I’ve not heard of anyone who has had benefit from doing less than three workouts each week) it is important to take these rules as guidance.  Each individual will find that they start to suffer from the symptoms of fatigue with a different level of training. 

The point I always return to is that I seem to get the best long-term results if I’m doing the minimum possible – enough to get the gains without the fatigue.

If you do start to feel fatigue it is important to back off from the workouts, potentially considering a full week of complete enforced rest before trying a new program armed with the knowledge of what didn’t work for you. 

Rest periods within workouts

Moving down a level we can also look at the amount of rest to take within workouts.  There is again an element of trial and error to be found here with each individual responding differently, often depending on whether they have fast-twitch or slow-twitch muscle fibres.

Over the last few years I have learned that I respond best to shorter time periods.  I have a very small difference between the weights I can move for lots of repetitions and my one rep max effort lifts.  I recover quickly from most activities and therefore taking longer rest periods between sets achieves nothing and means I potentially lose some of the hormonal benefits of doing multiple sets.  In comparison, Chris often needs longer rest periods than me or has to significantly reduce the weight.  He has a big differential in weight between his higher rep efforts and his one rep max in most exercises and moving the significantly larger weights for fewer sets takes a big toll on his body.

The best example of this is our current squat workout.  We both follow a program of 5 sets of 2 reps.  I do this on 1.5 minutes but if Chris tries to go near the bar before 2 minutes is up he would struggle to get through more than 3 sets.  Instead he works on a 2.5 minutes period per set.

A study was carried out by Buresh, Berg and French in 2009 that compared long and short rest intervals between sets.  Unfortunately it is almost impossible to extract anything worthwhile from the study, other than it being a perfect example of why studies of this nature are difficult to carry out.  For a good analysis of the study and the problems behind drawing any conclusions from it, I recommend reading an article by Helen Kollias on Precision Nutrition.

Helping CNS recovery

When all else fails and you overtrain, which is always a potential risk, you are likely to find that not only are your muscles sore but you have also negatively impacted on your central nervous system (CNS).  As the CNS, made up of the brain and spinal cord, controls the whole nervous system, it is common sense that once this is no longer able to fire messages around correctly you will no longer get the muscle responses that you want.

Iron Man Magazine recently reported on a study that has shown that BCAAs (branched-chain amino acids – essential amino acids that cannot be created by the body but must instead be supplemented through diet) can regulate alterations within the CNS that adversely affect physical performance and growth potential.  Benefits of BCAAs in addition to this include increased protein synthesis and reduced muscle tissue breakdown, making BCAAs excellent for both mental and physical recovery after a workout.

Iron Man Magazine is recommending using supplementation, but I would instead recommend trying to supplement BCAAs through your choice of diet.  In particular, they can be found in dairy, red meat and eggs.

I hope this information has been helpful.  It’s certainly refreshed my mind as I start to become more active again.

Related posts:

1. Powerlifting progress 2010: week five (rest, recovery, rehab and re-writing)
2. Powerlifting progress 2010: week eleven (holiday and active rest)
3. Lessons learned: training outside the box