Listen to your body!

​Do you find yourself constantly in the gym, working your butt off, but to no reward?

It’s possible you could be experiencing Central Nervous System (CNS) fatigue. This is very different to the typical muscular fatigue that results from a hard workout, where you are out of breath and your muscles are sore, whereas CNS fatigue correlates with brain chemistry and hormone production.

The biggest indicator of CNS fatigue is a reduction of training performance, all of a sudden you feel slower and weights feel heavier. Some other indicators may include lack of motivation and poor sleep. An easy way to test neural fatigue is by measuring grip strength, time yourself holding a weighted barbell and retest a week or so later. If your grip time has decreased, then it’s very possible your body is suffering due to an overload of stress without adequate recovery.

The best way to prevent neural fatigue is to predict it, I like to incorporate a “recovery week” every 4-6 weeks of training. A recovery (or de-load) week allows for complete recovery of all bodily systems by reducing your training load for that week. This can be accomplished in a couple of different ways, by reducing training frequency (the number of times you train), training intensity (how heavy you lift) or training volume (the total amount of reps and sets you perform).
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Successfully completing a de-load week will leave you reinvigorated and feeling stronger than before, ready to tackle the next week of training. Couple this with adequate sleep and proper nutrition and your results should sky-rocket! Try it out 😊