Supercompensation

Have you ever wondered what is really means to have sore muscles? Today we are discussing Supercompensation. This is how your body responds to exercise and how it adapts to training. When you're through with this article you should have a good idea of what you're optimal training schedule should be. Are you working out enough or too little? Lets find out!

1. What is Supercompensation?

• Take a look a that picture above.

• Base Line = Your current level of fitness or where you're muscles are at right now.

• Training Recovery = The time immediately following exercise when your muscles are fatigued and/or sore.

• Supercompensation = The most important time to work out. This is when you're results occur and you'll have peak performance.

2. Lamens terms please!

• Before you work out this is what you're body looks like. This is your current state of lean body mass.

• Now we will apply a stimulus (training session). After the training session that is when you're performance decreases because your muscles are tired and sore. This is when you should be resting.

• About 24-48 hours after your last workout Supercompensation occurs. This is the most important time to incorporate another workout (training session). If you do not, notice the graph above, you will return back to baseline and no results will occur. You have let too much time lapse for your body to adapt or change.

3. Can you workout too much?

• Short answer....YES!

• When you are over training your muscles haven't had time to heal. You're working out too close together or on sore muscles.

• This will be evident if you're ALWAYS sore and when you are working out it's hard to repeat the same workout because you're muscle fibers still have those tiny tears that haven't healed yet.

• Now, even if you are still sore you can still workout, but at least give it 24 hours in between.

• Workaround - If you're dead set on completing a workout and you can barely move certain areas of your body just work different muscle groups. Your body will thank you and you will continue to get results if you do this.

4. How about too little?

• Yes!

• This will be evident if you have had 24-48 hours or more in between workouts and every time you workout you're sore in those same areas as last time. Or maybe the exercises or circuits never get easier? This should be another clue for your body that you need to be doing more.

• If this is the case and you aren't able to add additional workouts extend the time you workout by 10-20 minutes so that you have a stellar total body conditioning session each time your workout.

5. Ideal Training Schedules

• Mon: Train, Tues: Off, Wed: Train, Thurs: Off, Fri: Train, Sat: Off, Sunday: Train

• Mon: Upper Body, Tues: Lower Body, Wed: Upper Body, Thurs: Lower Body, Fri: Upper Body, Saturday: Lower Body, Sunday: Rest (You can also do front of body (anterior) and back side (posterior) instead of upper and lower if that's preferable)

• Mon: Train, Tues: Train, Wed: Off, Thurs: Train, Fri: Train, Sat: Train, Sun: Off.

If you have any questions about how to create a personalized training schedule for your individual goals let me know!