Hey All! -Alpha Progression App: alphaprogression.com/HOUSEOFHYPERTROPHY Timestamps + Voluntary Activation Note Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:47 Part I: What CNS Fatigue Actually Is 2:26 Part II: Is CNS Fatigue Always Present Days After Lifting? 3:34 Part III: Heavier Weights Produce More CNS Fatigue (Fact or Myth) 7:23 Part IV: Do Deadlifts Produce More CNS Fatigue? 10:05 Part V: Does Training to Failure Produce More CNS Fatigue? 13:09 Part VI: Can We Detect CNS Fatigue? 15:11 Part VII: Do You Need to Track Fatigue? 20:58 Part VIII: Recap Voluntary Activation Note: As mentioned in the video, voluntary activation refers to how much of a muscle's force producing capacity we can voluntarily activate. Researchers measure this by having subjects perform a all out maximum (typically isometric) contraction, and during this, the researchers will apply an electrical stimulus to the muscle. If this added electrical stimulus increases the force produced by the muscle, this means that the person's nervous system isn't fully accessing 100% of the muscle force producing potential. And as mentioned in the video, if a reduction in voluntary activation is seen after exercise, this is thought to indicate CNS fatigue is present. There is an interesting fact worth being aware of. For the most part, even when fatigue is NOT present, people cannot 100% fully activate their muscle. For example, one paper (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11870692/) finds with no fatigue present, subjects could only access around 84.5% of their quadriceps force producing potential, while for the biceps and calves, they could access 95% of these muscle's force producing potential.
Ok. Show us the the science Books, pappers, documents Science investigation and analyz as REFERENCES! People need to know where your information are from as origin and how you conclude the information = Based on. Also give us your Degree and College or university degree Exam (Bachelor degree in body subject) which are 3-5 years education period exam. its great you doing a video about Training and how the body Works. But was is yours credentials? If you not have any. Why would we as normal personl none experts in the subject belive what you are saying? As examples What grounds is your Statements based on and how did you conclude your final words from the information you had read? The body is a SYSTEM thats extremtly complex, and has many subsystems = under systems. Its very important to know the points I asking for. Its very easy to conclude wrong and false conclusions ideas, advices if you not are educated in this Stuff. Myself im not an expert in the human body but I have degree in Natural Science and training is my number 1 hobbie and read alot of Books about the subject. I dont want to be picky or annoying.but Its important if I or any other normal person (none expert) to believe your Statements. Next Show your cridentials and references.
I think CNS fatigue has a lot to do with individual variances because some people have a way more active cns and they experience more fatigue. I trained guys for pro days and the guys who had faster 40 timed and higher verts showed more variation from day to day. This is has been proven in studies im pretty sure. Also outside activity is a big confounder. Lots of research has shown that doing cognitively difficult tasks effects performance and im sure CNS is part of that. Pain has a lot to do with it to and proprioception. If people were experiencning pain that can affect H reflex and also proprioception being challenged by new exercises could throw off results because proprioception can probably where at your CNS. Once your body becomes accustomed to movements and finds motor control patterns where its basically almost like subcortical function than CNS will not be challenged as much.
Love your channel. The effort, time and patience it takes to do this is greatly appreciated. I have learned so much from this. And still learning. Keep up the great work. One of the best channels to not only learn what the body can do, but also to tune your excercise routines in.
As i got older (now 50) i found it hard to maintain high neural drive when going above 12 reps, hit a plateau and had insomnia and often got the jitters. Solution was just to increase load to reduce reps to 8-10 reps max, even on isolations like side lat raises and bicep curls. Worked a treat and im back to progressing and my sleep is back to normal. I also use a de-load week now and then just to manage overall fatigue in a way i didnt need to when i was younger
I'm 50, and I've found the same thing. I can rarely progress to 12 reps with a new load. If I can get 12 with one, I can get 15-16, but building up to 12 I hit a wall at 10...
stop training to failure and lower freq to 2d a week per body part or even 1d a week. Also monitor cofeeine intake. Sleep is important, more important than training to a big degree.
You know... being able to mould my shit might come in handy... But more srsly, kegel alternatives or as a sideffect of which 'normal' exercises might be a useful topic.
I think that what most people think is CNS fatigue is actually adrenaline desensitization. This can happen from overstimulation, overuse of stimulants like caffeine, poor sleep. This is not to say that there is not also "real" CNS fatigue". I have also heard that overcoming isometrics cause high CNS fatigue. Sometimes though being mentally tired has been shown to improve performance because cortisol level may be elevated, and the parasympathetic nervous system may be downregulated, and the parasympathetic nervous system is primarily inhibitory.
If non-failure training gives the same hypertrophy as training to failure but you recover quicker than going to failure then that means you can do more sets a week, which may lead to greater muscle gains
This is definitely something I need to look into--when I get migraines a lot, I get noticeably weaker for up to a few days; I never understood this concept, but it could be that migraines are causing cns fatigue before I even start a workout. Thanks for something new to look into, and great video as always!
@@theonlyD Yeah, after further research, that's looking more likely. "Weak nervous system" seems to be the overarching problem, and migraines are happening when I hit my limit.
14:55 this is anecdotal but I noticed personally that when grabbing heavy things at work easily I knew that i would have a good lift later. And i have never heard of the grip cns correlation, just something i noticed.
I just love your channel so much, highly informative but also critical! Deadlifts, to me, aren't more fatiguing than squats, if I don't tell myself so. I think many people get in that scared mode when they deadlift and stress themselves out a lot. Going at it with a calm mind, not overdoing it, I find it's absolutely possible to recover well from them.
Wow. What a coincidence - a vid about CNS fatigue... I've been resting a lot of days lately due to fatigue after working out 8 straight days prior to my rest. Waiting till I start feeling great before working out again.
Great video as always! I always found it weird that some program like Stronglifts and Starting Strengths only made you deadlift for 1 set due "high fatigue." This video definitely shows to stick with a few sets. If squats interfere with your deadlift, like these workout routines, program them on separate days.
There is a diffirence between powerlifting/strength training and a hypertrophy/ bodybuilding approach. The on-going debate over Mike Mentzers heavy Duty philosophy is due to the fact that what he was really promoting was strength training.
Cns fatigue is basically being in a state of overall burnout. Where things get really bad is not recognizing or accepting its time to back off ( de-load) on the overall intensity & instead fall into the deceptive mindset of going harder & fueling that empty tank with more caffeine or other stimulants. I've been there & it wreaked havoc on my mental & physical well being. If you ever experience multiple days of feeling drained or lack of strength/ motivation......take some days off. Make eating & rest your primary concern
I have suffered from depression and I couldn’t get hypertrophy thanks to CNS fatigue, thanks to my experience I would say that CNS fatigue may be a symptom of depression, however doing exercise actually helped me get less fatigued, with time, I couldn’t activate my muscles well even in the first rep and I didn’t see much change with progress, It’s just like you can’t use your muscles, in any case I would say that the variations in fatigue at the moment were possitive but specifically trying to do cardio seemed like the best way to actually improve a little bit your fatigue, sometimes. It’s very difficult to do cardio when you feel your body is like jelly, but you have to make the sacrifice if you want to see results.
Interesting, in the past i couldn't leave my house nor my bed some days but I could go gym everyday 6/7. It persisted for years, I couldn't even play video games. Better place now but I think I trained my CNS fatigue to build up and in that built my perseverance that lead to me getting a job and Mrs.
Very interesting analysis! I would say in experienced individuals the subjective perceived fatigue is the most valid indicator. Also your heart rate behavior, your focus and your ability to keep balance are good indicators of CNS fatigue.
Hmm, this seems to further my support for trying the power-pump-PPL split I thought of a while back. The general idea is rather than doing 2 rounds of PPL like normal you instead do 2 days of push, the first day you do lower rep high weight (maybe 4 to 6 reps) push, and the very next day you do high rep low weight (somewhere in the 15-20 rep range) push, then repeat for 2 days of pulls, and again for 2 days of legs, then the rest day which could be stretching, walking, or other low intensity steady state cardio. This allows for keeping blood flow in the area that just did heavy training within 24-36 hours, has larger recovery periods after the 2 days of work (5 days) for each muscle group, and still has the simplicity and consistency of a regular PPL to fit in a week.
Interesting idea but i feel that compensations will be made on the heavy day or the light day. I also wouldnt want to spam "light" weight to failure or crazy pump after damaging the muscle with heavy the previous day. Science shows that lighter activities are beneficial for recovery and you can throw around light weights but i won't be making a targeted workout of it on the same muscles. I do however think deloads are great. i do a light week every 3-5 weeks with very few actual rest days since my split is PPL. first leg day is quad/tibs etc. 2nd leg day is hams glutes. i do calves on both days
There is Daily Undulating Periodization and Weekly Undulating Periodization for Hypertrophy. Daily is you change variables like rep range, weight, and exercise selection on different days. Hard days have harder exercises with higher weight in a 5-8 rep range. Light days have higher rep range with more joint friendly exercises in a 12-20+ rep range. Then a medium day with harder exercises in a 8-12 rep range. I am trying to incorporate it into my full body 3x a week so I rest between days. For weekly you do weeks with the heavy, light, and medium weeks with I think the same exercises at different rep ranges. I saw this from fazlifts so I am not an expert at all. I have no idea how to incorporate into PPL. Just wanted to point you in the right direction since you already understand the concept. Lift safe!
Once again, great content. I wonder how much of the "CNS fatigue isn't as much of a factor" is attacking a Strawman, with "CNS fatigue" just being gym talk for "systemic fatigue of any kind"? Said another way, most people aren't distinguishing between Central or Peripheral fatigue when describing "CNS fatigue"..it is just a colloquial term for..say, non muscular related fatigue or something similar. It kind of reminds of the "you can't isolate a muscle" criticism of "Isolation exercises".... when no one really was saying the exercise completely isolated anything. It was just "relative" isolation. Going back to the CNS..I'll call in "neural" fatigue...it makes sense that higher reps taken to failure would be more "fatiguing" than lower reps....there is more volume of high neural drive to complete a 30 rep set to failure, vs a 5 rep set to failure. 5 reps to failure, you have maybe 1 hard rep? 30 reps to failure, you have many more that you have to "push" through. Said another way, you simply have many more "difficult" reps, it isn't volume of exercise, it is volume of DIFFICULT reps. I think in the real world, more people do "strength" type exercises to a lower RIR than endurance exercises. How many people run or do aerobics to "failure"?
Super informative video! I feel like I've always heard that heavier weight for lower reps lead to higher fatigue. Your research is extremely thorough and impressive. Do you have a background in research?
These findings aren't too surprising when you consider that the main fatigue in CNS is depletion of the neurotransmitters in the synapses between the nerves or nerve- muscle.
Thanks for the really good videos! On the subject; I don't train my legs at all during the road cycling season (4 months in Finland 😁).. Only TT road cycling.. my leg muscles don't get any smaller (some years they grow).. I train the muscles of the upper body normally.. during the road cycling season, the muscles of the upper body even get smaller! Is it due to general stress or because you can't eat enough? 🤔
Very interesting to hear that, thank you for sharing! What's your nutritional intake like during the cycling season? Do you think you're in a caloric deficit? If so, this could be a factor.
I dont know what it actually was but one time i went in and did a really heavy max on deadlift, after that i couldnt even pull half of what i did and all other compounds felt weaker too so i attributed it to this
fatigue is more related to sleeping hours, kcal intake, digestion, stress, temperature, than the effort in the gym itself. and speaking about exercise.. I fell much worst the day after a long tut session, or after a high density training. of course to lift 240kg you need much more good feelings than the sensations required to lift 8kg for longer 30reps
Love your videos! And this topic is very interesting, especially the deadlift for the powerlifting community! Where deadlifts often is programmed with a 2-4 week HIt-Lit-Mit-HIT, Especially for “trained/advanced” athletes. I also tried to find some research on this. I found mostly studies based on polls with power/weight lifting athletes, and most of them showed a bias towards 2-4 week recovery period between every hit deadlift session. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts and opinion about them!
Yep, there are papers with power lifters feeling the deadlift is more fatiguing (like this: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26670988/) It's difficult to really make strong conclusions from these. For now, I think it will be best to wait and see if future research (measuring fatigue) finds the deadlift to be more fatiguing or not.
I understand that this is the house of hypertrophy, not the house of powerlifting. But could you make a few videos regarding how to fully optimize strength gains?
Yep! I actually plan to have a series of videos comparing strength to size, and in these videos I'll discuss how certain traning variables may be employed to bias strength or size
@@HouseofHypertrophy Thank you! I really appreciate your consistency, video quality and the sheer amount of value, knowledge and research packed within each video.
Superb video as always! I just wanted to ask one question. I thought the whole argument of not training to failure being superior is based on being able to do more volume than with training to failure, is that correct?
For me personally it really depends on the exercise... So the leg extension it just gives me a pump and well percived muscle damage without much fatigue. Even doing fast reps with squats gives me very little overall percived fatigue (i guess that's the CNS fatigue) but the slight decline leg press wich targets almost all the leg muscles gives me a crap ton of fatigue, and same with those chest press machines that u can load with plates, they also for some reason give me a ton of fatigue, especially if i load them too heavy.
Regarding deadlifts and CNS. The one thing I didn't hear was the fact deadlifts hit multiple major muscle groups, and that causing more CNS compared to a bench press.
Whether this is enough to cause meaningfully more CNS fatigue is not clear. If it was, we'd expect more consistently in the data finding more fatigue from deadlifts, but this doesn't (at least currently) appear to be the case :)
You are the king of bodybuilding Science! I am trying to separate muscular failure from CNS failure. So if I'm doing skull crushers until I crush my skull and cannot do another rep w/o assist I have reached concentric musc. failure. No matter how strong my CNS is I am unable to do another rep. Are they not pretty much the same? How does the CNS impulse change? I am having trouble putting my qu. in to words. Isn't the elec. stim "all or nothing?" So if the musc. fails no matter how strong the stimulus is, it has failed? And when I use creatine my endurance is much improved. What has improved themusc. endurance or the CNS strength? Thank you.
Interesting I always primarily associated involuntary tremors and poor fine motor control with a "fried" cns, not the inability to maximally contract a muscle.
I don't think your video or any of the studies actually studied central nervous system fatigue. According to my understanding, it is a type of fatigue stimulated by overtraining, which generally takes longer than 2 months to set in, and can take over a month to recover from. I don't think any of the studies you referenced were longer than 10 weeks, which is just on the edge of when overtraining might begin to set in. Often, it can take over a year before overtraining sets in. I also think this overtraining is really mineral deficiency, especially copper deficiency. I have not yet found another mineral that is more important to nerve health than copper. I have looked at overtraining symptoms, and they are all symptoms of copper deficiency. I have hit this overtraining and copper deficiency in my training before, and it looks like this. I was cruising along in my training, gaining both strength and endurance, more weight more sets more reps... doing multiple sets of squatting 200 pounds, for up to 20 reps. Then, weakness sets in. You just get progressively weaker and so you back off the weight, back off the sets, back off the reps. It does not work. I went down to 100 pound squats for 10 reps and still just felt horrible. Then, I started copper supplementation. I got both my drive and my strength back, and within a month, I was back up to squatting 200 pounds for 20 reps again. And no, no steroids were involved.
I remember that mike israetel expressed it like this: any sufficiently experienced lifter can tell you deadlift fatigue is "qualitatively" different to any other type of fatigue. I'm not going to discount the studies presented here, since i'm a complete ignorant when it comes to science in general, i just have intuitions sadly, however to give an extreme example, imagine i take one biceps exercise that is performed to great success by most people, i make a study to find if it does grow the biceps, but instead of measuring muscle growth directly, i decide to measure my (potentially wrong or as of yet incomplete) list of "things that would indicate that the muscle may grow" and with that alone i conclude that the exercise is not good at growing the biceps. I'd bet most people wouldn't take that as evidence. Now, i don't really know where the truth lies in that topic, but measuring potential indicators of fatigue when fatigue is defined as a subjective experience above all is, to me at least, similar to not measuring muscle growth in the previous example. If people doing deadlifts tend to feel more fatigued, the fact that my list of potential fatigue indicators doesn't show that, intuitively at least, leads me to believe that the list (or the measurements of the elements on that list) is wrong or incomplete, not that people are not really fatigued.
100% I see where you're coming from. I certainly can't rule out the possibility we'll develop betters measures of CNS fatigue, and fatigue in general, especially how it relates to subjective perceptions.
@@HouseofHypertrophy I think the main reason why i tend to doubt this kind of physiological measures of subjective experience comes from the little i've heard about the science of pain from the people of barbell medicine and the like, if people can feel debilitating amounts of pain when no detectable injury is present now i tend to be more, lets say scared, when it comes to even slightly downplaying similar experiences due to just a lack of physiologically measurable confirmation of such experiences. But then again, i know nothing about the topic, this was just to express how my intuition tingles.
Sorry to be a pain in the arse, but if you touched on the concept that soreness = hypertrophy or the idea that inflammation is required for hypertrophy, can you link that video?
I'm not sure this is very trackable. At a high fitness level I've been well rested well carbed , not in a caloric deficit, a few times last year, when it was time to do the workout, i just couldn't perform. Took another rest day and all was back to normal. I feel like this is something that will happen from time to time and when it foes you just have to rest a bit more, anecdotally of course
If u do low volume 4-6 sets per session with low rep range 5-7 reps till failure while having 2-3 rest days in a week i don't think people should worry about fatigue.....
That is not necessarily true, if you mean 4-6 per muscle group per session. If 4 or 6 is the maximum amount of sets to maximize hypertrophy during one session (as it seems to be) it is quite possible to have too much fatigue still, especially if 2-3x a week.
@@joojotin recovery is what matters if ur recovering without any issues then u can do high frequency if u ain't then prolly reduce ur frequency and have extra rest days while for natural lifters who trains hard they need extra rest days... I do 10 day PPL split I only do 4 sets for chest 4 for shoulder 3-4 for Tricep in a session my volume is low the focus is on progression the stronger u get the bigger u get... Now taking about frequency here's how it looks like Push Pull Off Leg Off Repeat...I train the same muscle after every 5 days so fatigue is not issue for me...🤷 U can't out work a shitty programming Ur programming is what matters based on ur recovery capabilities... Note :- 4-6 sets is to create Myops Adaptation thats the driver of hypertrophy...
You wanna know about CSN fatigue? Do one Heavy Duty training session, PROPERLY, and it will come to you by the end of 30min of training and sitck with you for a MINIMUM of 24-36hrs SYSTEMICALLY 😅
I must ask, how do you vocalize these videos? I'm an intermediate strength trainer but I'm also a software engineer. Every time I listen to your videos, I realize many of the phrases (such as "hypertrophy") have the exact same pronunciation as if it's a software-generated voice. However in some cases I recognize an actual human speaking. What's your total process behind the microphone?
My voice just tends to be monotone, but it's something I'm working on. All the voiceover is done by me with no special editing or AI, sometimes the audio may sound off as I might record a particular section (or correct something) at a different time
@@HouseofHypertrophy that's interesting, I was pretty sure it would include at least some automated voice generation. At least your voice is always excited, so it doesn't feel boring. Thanks for all the scientific meta analysis so I don't have to dig so deep to find the actual science being training!
i think deadlifts have another main reason why you think they fatigue you more, and that is daily life use, unlike every other muscles your lower back gets used on pretty much everything, if u do a leg workout, having to walk or stand up or do anything with your legs quickly tells you how fatigued they are, but nowadays most of us sit down, however after a back workout everything you do daily makes you feel that fatigue in it, and my guess is feeling it so much during a day gives you a sense that its more fatigued even tho its not in comparison to any other muscle its just no other muscle gets used as much as the lower back area during a day, essentially we are just far more aware of fatigue in the lower back due to far more use, and this leads many people to think that its more fatigue, if u were to stay in bed all day after deadlifting you probably wont have this idea, but nobody does that :)
What your guys opinion on the only 3 exercise. I do bjj so listen to Joe Rogan and he said, chin up, push up and body weight squats will get you a good work out, and Im sure Arthur Jones said the same but dips instead of push up, but i always thought this isn’t enough. I train so much for bjj I’ve stopped working out. I know you guys will be the best to ask. Sorry house of hypertrophy for being of topic
This is why I do 4 sets Set 1: 20 reps low weight Set 2: 15 reps moderate weight Set 3: 12 reps heavy weight Set 4: 12 reps heavy weight with 5 - 10 partials
Hey All! -Alpha Progression App: alphaprogression.com/HOUSEOFHYPERTROPHY
Timestamps + Voluntary Activation Note
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:47 Part I: What CNS Fatigue Actually Is
2:26 Part II: Is CNS Fatigue Always Present Days After Lifting?
3:34 Part III: Heavier Weights Produce More CNS Fatigue (Fact or Myth)
7:23 Part IV: Do Deadlifts Produce More CNS Fatigue?
10:05 Part V: Does Training to Failure Produce More CNS Fatigue?
13:09 Part VI: Can We Detect CNS Fatigue?
15:11 Part VII: Do You Need to Track Fatigue?
20:58 Part VIII: Recap
Voluntary Activation Note:
As mentioned in the video, voluntary activation refers to how much of a muscle's force producing capacity we can voluntarily activate.
Researchers measure this by having subjects perform a all out maximum (typically isometric) contraction, and during this, the researchers will apply an electrical stimulus to the muscle. If this added electrical stimulus increases the force produced by the muscle, this means that the person's nervous system isn't fully accessing 100% of the muscle force producing potential. And as mentioned in the video, if a reduction in voluntary activation is seen after exercise, this is thought to indicate CNS fatigue is present.
There is an interesting fact worth being aware of. For the most part, even when fatigue is NOT present, people cannot 100% fully activate their muscle. For example, one paper (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11870692/) finds with no fatigue present, subjects could only access around 84.5% of their quadriceps force producing potential, while for the biceps and calves, they could access 95% of these muscle's force producing potential.
Ok. Show us the the science Books, pappers, documents Science investigation and analyz as REFERENCES! People need to know where your information are from as origin and how you conclude the information = Based on.
Also give us your Degree and College or university degree Exam (Bachelor degree in body subject) which are 3-5 years education period exam.
its great you doing a video about Training and how the body Works.
But was is yours credentials?
If you not have any. Why would we as normal personl none experts in the subject belive what you are saying?
As examples What grounds is your Statements based on and how did you conclude your final words from the information you had read?
The body is a SYSTEM thats extremtly complex, and has many subsystems = under systems. Its very important to know the points I asking for.
Its very easy to conclude wrong and false conclusions ideas, advices if you not are educated in this Stuff.
Myself im not an expert in the human body but I have degree in Natural Science and training is my number 1 hobbie and read alot of Books about the subject.
I dont want to be picky or annoying.but Its important if I or any other normal person (none expert) to believe your Statements.
Next Show your cridentials and references.
I think CNS fatigue has a lot to do with individual variances because some people have a way more active cns and they experience more fatigue. I trained guys for pro days and the guys who had faster 40 timed and higher verts showed more variation from day to day. This is has been proven in studies im pretty sure. Also outside activity is a big confounder. Lots of research has shown that doing cognitively difficult tasks effects performance and im sure CNS is part of that. Pain has a lot to do with it to and proprioception. If people were experiencning pain that can affect H reflex and also proprioception being challenged by new exercises could throw off results because proprioception can probably where at your CNS. Once your body becomes accustomed to movements and finds motor control patterns where its basically almost like subcortical function than CNS will not be challenged as much.
No matter what, do not give up on this channel. Its one of the best, and it will see exponential growth sooner rather than later.
Love your channel. The effort, time and patience it takes to do this is greatly appreciated. I have learned so much from this. And still learning. Keep up the great work. One of the best channels to not only learn what the body can do, but also to tune your excercise routines in.
Thank you so much for the kind words, they mean a lot to me :)
As i got older (now 50) i found it hard to maintain high neural drive when going above 12 reps, hit a plateau and had insomnia and often got the jitters. Solution was just to increase load to reduce reps to 8-10 reps max, even on isolations like side lat raises and bicep curls. Worked a treat and im back to progressing and my sleep is back to normal. I also use a de-load week now and then just to manage overall fatigue in a way i didnt need to when i was younger
I'm 50, and I've found the same thing. I can rarely progress to 12 reps with a new load. If I can get 12 with one, I can get 15-16, but building up to 12 I hit a wall at 10...
time to hop on TRT gramps
stop training to failure and lower freq to 2d a week per body part or even 1d a week.
Also monitor cofeeine intake.
Sleep is important, more important than training to a big degree.
@@tylerprudhommeim pretty sure TRT doesn't enhance CNS at All
@@KryssN1This is really good advice. Exactly what lifters who perform too much over reaching and excessive hypertrophy need to hear.
Scientific sphincter training next?
When you’re squatting heavy, you’re gonna need it!😂😂😂
You know... being able to mould my shit might come in handy...
But more srsly, kegel alternatives or as a sideffect of which 'normal' exercises might be a useful topic.
Squat plug +6.9% instant gains
Hold this pickle and don’t let it fall
people with GERD would need that
So much of an important video!! Great esiting! Thanks for the information!🙏🏼
this video makes me understand C.Beardsley and Borge points of managing fatigues better. Thank you always amazing explanations!
I think that what most people think is CNS fatigue is actually adrenaline desensitization. This can happen from overstimulation, overuse of stimulants like caffeine, poor sleep. This is not to say that there is not also "real" CNS fatigue".
I have also heard that overcoming isometrics cause high CNS fatigue.
Sometimes though being mentally tired has been shown to improve performance because cortisol level may be elevated, and the parasympathetic nervous system may be downregulated, and the parasympathetic nervous system is primarily inhibitory.
If non-failure training gives the same hypertrophy as training to failure but you recover quicker than going to failure then that means you can do more sets a week, which may lead to greater muscle gains
This is definitely something I need to look into--when I get migraines a lot, I get noticeably weaker for up to a few days; I never understood this concept, but it could be that migraines are causing cns fatigue before I even start a workout.
Thanks for something new to look into, and great video as always!
Or CNS fatigue causing migraines.
@@theonlyD Yeah, after further research, that's looking more likely. "Weak nervous system" seems to be the overarching problem, and migraines are happening when I hit my limit.
14:55 this is anecdotal but I noticed personally that when grabbing heavy things at work easily I knew that i would have a good lift later. And i have never heard of the grip cns correlation, just something i noticed.
One of the best videos of the channel. Great work!
I just love your channel so much, highly informative but also critical! Deadlifts, to me, aren't more fatiguing than squats, if I don't tell myself so. I think many people get in that scared mode when they deadlift and stress themselves out a lot. Going at it with a calm mind, not overdoing it, I find it's absolutely possible to recover well from them.
Thank you so much for the kind words and sharing your experience, very interesting to hear :)
Wow. What a coincidence - a vid about CNS fatigue... I've been resting a lot of days lately due to fatigue after working out 8 straight days prior to my rest.
Waiting till I start feeling great before working out again.
Went really hard on deadlifts last week, couldn't even look at a gym for 4 days lol
Haha, hope you recovery soon dude :) 💪
this is one of your better and more interesting videos, thank you
Great video as always! I always found it weird that some program like Stronglifts and Starting Strengths only made you deadlift for 1 set due "high fatigue." This video definitely shows to stick with a few sets. If squats interfere with your deadlift, like these workout routines, program them on separate days.
There is a diffirence between powerlifting/strength training and a hypertrophy/ bodybuilding approach. The on-going debate over Mike Mentzers heavy Duty philosophy is due to the fact that what he was really promoting was strength training.
My favourite video of yours to date. This subject is almost never tackled. Great to see such a balanced and nuanced take on the matter.
Excellent video, I always thought CNS fatigue was just feeling tired/fried during a workout.
Cns fatigue is basically being in a state of overall burnout. Where things get really bad is not recognizing or accepting its time to back off ( de-load) on the overall intensity & instead fall into the deceptive mindset of going harder & fueling that empty tank with more caffeine or other stimulants. I've been there & it wreaked havoc on my mental & physical well being. If you ever experience multiple days of feeling drained or lack of strength/ motivation......take some days off. Make eating & rest your primary concern
Massive and professionals information. Each and everytime. Respect and many thanks
Thank you so much! :)
damn i think its the reason why my supination and pronation repetition is lower despite consistent workout
this channel is a blessing from god , plssss keep the legendaary content
I have suffered from depression and I couldn’t get hypertrophy thanks to CNS fatigue, thanks to my experience I would say that CNS fatigue may be a symptom of depression, however doing exercise actually helped me get less fatigued, with time, I couldn’t activate my muscles well even in the first rep and I didn’t see much change with progress, It’s just like you can’t use your muscles, in any case I would say that the variations in fatigue at the moment were possitive but specifically trying to do cardio seemed like the best way to actually improve a little bit your fatigue, sometimes.
It’s very difficult to do cardio when you feel your body is like jelly, but you have to make the sacrifice if you want to see results.
Interesting, in the past i couldn't leave my house nor my bed some days but I could go gym everyday 6/7. It persisted for years, I couldn't even play video games. Better place now but I think I trained my CNS fatigue to build up and in that built my perseverance that lead to me getting a job and Mrs.
bro is the goat for including those beat links 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Wow!
What an in-depth video!!
Very interesting analysis!
I would say in experienced individuals the subjective perceived fatigue is the most valid indicator. Also your heart rate behavior, your focus and your ability to keep balance are good indicators of CNS fatigue.
Once again an outstanding video!
Hmm, this seems to further my support for trying the power-pump-PPL split I thought of a while back. The general idea is rather than doing 2 rounds of PPL like normal you instead do 2 days of push, the first day you do lower rep high weight (maybe 4 to 6 reps) push, and the very next day you do high rep low weight (somewhere in the 15-20 rep range) push, then repeat for 2 days of pulls, and again for 2 days of legs, then the rest day which could be stretching, walking, or other low intensity steady state cardio.
This allows for keeping blood flow in the area that just did heavy training within 24-36 hours, has larger recovery periods after the 2 days of work (5 days) for each muscle group, and still has the simplicity and consistency of a regular PPL to fit in a week.
Interesting idea but i feel that compensations will be made on the heavy day or the light day. I also wouldnt want to spam "light" weight to failure or crazy pump after damaging the muscle with heavy the previous day. Science shows that lighter activities are beneficial for recovery and you can throw around light weights but i won't be making a targeted workout of it on the same muscles. I do however think deloads are great. i do a light week every 3-5 weeks with very few actual rest days since my split is PPL. first leg day is quad/tibs etc. 2nd leg day is hams glutes. i do calves on both days
There is Daily Undulating Periodization and Weekly Undulating Periodization for Hypertrophy. Daily is you change variables like rep range, weight, and exercise selection on different days. Hard days have harder exercises with higher weight in a 5-8 rep range. Light days have higher rep range with more joint friendly exercises in a 12-20+ rep range. Then a medium day with harder exercises in a 8-12 rep range. I am trying to incorporate it into my full body 3x a week so I rest between days. For weekly you do weeks with the heavy, light, and medium weeks with I think the same exercises at different rep ranges. I saw this from fazlifts so I am not an expert at all. I have no idea how to incorporate into PPL. Just wanted to point you in the right direction since you already understand the concept. Lift safe!
Once again, great content. I wonder how much of the "CNS fatigue isn't as much of a factor" is attacking a Strawman, with "CNS fatigue" just being gym talk for "systemic fatigue of any kind"? Said another way, most people aren't distinguishing between Central or Peripheral fatigue when describing "CNS fatigue"..it is just a colloquial term for..say, non muscular related fatigue or something similar. It kind of reminds of the "you can't isolate a muscle" criticism of "Isolation exercises".... when no one really was saying the exercise completely isolated anything. It was just "relative" isolation. Going back to the CNS..I'll call in "neural" fatigue...it makes sense that higher reps taken to failure would be more "fatiguing" than lower reps....there is more volume of high neural drive to complete a 30 rep set to failure, vs a 5 rep set to failure. 5 reps to failure, you have maybe 1 hard rep? 30 reps to failure, you have many more that you have to "push" through. Said another way, you simply have many more "difficult" reps, it isn't volume of exercise, it is volume of DIFFICULT reps. I think in the real world, more people do "strength" type exercises to a lower RIR than endurance exercises. How many people run or do aerobics to "failure"?
I always work to failure or next to failure. This works best for me
This video came at the perfect time
Super informative video! I feel like I've always heard that heavier weight for lower reps lead to higher fatigue. Your research is extremely thorough and impressive. Do you have a background in research?
He almost certainly has a background in research
These findings aren't too surprising when you consider that the main fatigue in CNS is depletion of the neurotransmitters in the synapses between the nerves or nerve- muscle.
Thanks for the really good videos!
On the subject;
I don't train my legs at all during the road cycling season (4 months in Finland 😁).. Only TT road cycling.. my leg muscles don't get any smaller (some years they grow)..
I train the muscles of the upper body normally.. during the road cycling season, the muscles of the upper body even get smaller!
Is it due to general stress or because you can't eat enough? 🤔
Very interesting to hear that, thank you for sharing!
What's your nutritional intake like during the cycling season? Do you think you're in a caloric deficit? If so, this could be a factor.
@@HouseofHypertrophy I would say 3000 calories?!
I have "good" genes.. I always eat as much as I can handle + supplements 😁
Great vid as always. Thank you!
Thank YOU for checking it out :)
I dont know what it actually was but one time i went in and did a really heavy max on deadlift, after that i couldnt even pull half of what i did and all other compounds felt weaker too so i attributed it to this
Thanka man. You are amazing
fatigue is more related to sleeping hours, kcal intake, digestion, stress, temperature, than the effort in the gym itself. and speaking about exercise.. I fell much worst the day after a long tut session, or after a high density training. of course to lift 240kg you need much more good feelings than the sensations required to lift 8kg for longer 30reps
Thank you for this video❤
Thank YOU for checking it out :)
Great vídeo!
Thank you my friend!
Love your videos! And this topic is very interesting, especially the deadlift for the powerlifting community! Where deadlifts often is programmed with a 2-4 week HIt-Lit-Mit-HIT, Especially for “trained/advanced” athletes. I also tried to find some research on this. I found mostly studies based on polls with power/weight lifting athletes, and most of them showed a bias towards 2-4 week recovery period between every hit deadlift session.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts and opinion about them!
Yep, there are papers with power lifters feeling the deadlift is more fatiguing (like this: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26670988/)
It's difficult to really make strong conclusions from these. For now, I think it will be best to wait and see if future research (measuring fatigue) finds the deadlift to be more fatiguing or not.
I understand that this is the house of hypertrophy, not the house of powerlifting. But could you make a few videos regarding how to fully optimize strength gains?
Yep! I actually plan to have a series of videos comparing strength to size, and in these videos I'll discuss how certain traning variables may be employed to bias strength or size
@@HouseofHypertrophy Thank you! I really appreciate your consistency, video quality and the sheer amount of value, knowledge and research packed within each video.
plsssssssssss do soo@@HouseofHypertrophy
Another critical detriment that can induce legitimate cns fatigue is doubling down with caffeine/stimulants when you start regressing.
Superb video as always! I just wanted to ask one question. I thought the whole argument of not training to failure being superior is based on being able to do more volume than with training to failure, is that correct?
I certainly think that is one argument sometimes put forth! I do plan to have a video surrounding that some time :)
That was a frantic information visual overload. My CNS hurts now.
Man I love this channel
Especially loving the guy holding the barbell while sleeping 😂
For me personally it really depends on the exercise... So the leg extension it just gives me a pump and well percived muscle damage without much fatigue. Even doing fast reps with squats gives me very little overall percived fatigue (i guess that's the CNS fatigue) but the slight decline leg press wich targets almost all the leg muscles gives me a crap ton of fatigue, and same with those chest press machines that u can load with plates, they also for some reason give me a ton of fatigue, especially if i load them too heavy.
I think the bigger compound lifts, especially done at near max poundage will produce more than iso moves
This MAN deserves all rewards
Haha, thank you :)
You are great!
🫡
Can we just appreciate all the effort he puts into our balls?
Quite interesting. Is there is such thing as a global CNS fatigue accumulated over the phase of ~3 weeks of hard workouts?
Regarding deadlifts and CNS. The one thing I didn't hear was the fact deadlifts hit multiple major muscle groups, and that causing more CNS compared to a bench press.
Whether this is enough to cause meaningfully more CNS fatigue is not clear. If it was, we'd expect more consistently in the data finding more fatigue from deadlifts, but this doesn't (at least currently) appear to be the case :)
@@HouseofHypertrophy by the presentation of the studies, I question if it was looked at, at all.
Do kegels result in greater shooting potential? How many reps/sets should I do?
You are the king of bodybuilding Science! I am trying to separate muscular failure from CNS failure. So if I'm doing skull crushers until I crush my skull and cannot do another rep w/o assist I have reached concentric musc. failure. No matter how strong my CNS is I am unable to do another rep. Are they not pretty much the same? How does the CNS impulse change? I am having trouble putting my qu. in to words. Isn't the elec. stim "all or nothing?" So if the musc. fails no matter how strong the stimulus is, it has failed? And when I use creatine my endurance is much improved. What has improved themusc. endurance or the CNS strength? Thank you.
Interesting I always primarily associated involuntary tremors and poor fine motor control with a "fried" cns, not the inability to maximally contract a muscle.
More force production = more fiber recruitment and fiber fatique? Does this mean coffein and pre workout worth?
Very interesting! Thank you
Will you dive into nutrition too?
I do plan too :)
I don't think your video or any of the studies actually studied central nervous system fatigue. According to my understanding, it is a type of fatigue stimulated by overtraining, which generally takes longer than 2 months to set in, and can take over a month to recover from. I don't think any of the studies you referenced were longer than 10 weeks, which is just on the edge of when overtraining might begin to set in. Often, it can take over a year before overtraining sets in. I also think this overtraining is really mineral deficiency, especially copper deficiency. I have not yet found another mineral that is more important to nerve health than copper. I have looked at overtraining symptoms, and they are all symptoms of copper deficiency. I have hit this overtraining and copper deficiency in my training before, and it looks like this. I was cruising along in my training, gaining both strength and endurance, more weight more sets more reps... doing multiple sets of squatting 200 pounds, for up to 20 reps. Then, weakness sets in. You just get progressively weaker and so you back off the weight, back off the sets, back off the reps. It does not work. I went down to 100 pound squats for 10 reps and still just felt horrible. Then, I started copper supplementation. I got both my drive and my strength back, and within a month, I was back up to squatting 200 pounds for 20 reps again. And no, no steroids were involved.
I remember that mike israetel expressed it like this: any sufficiently experienced lifter can tell you deadlift fatigue is "qualitatively" different to any other type of fatigue.
I'm not going to discount the studies presented here, since i'm a complete ignorant when it comes to science in general, i just have intuitions sadly, however to give an extreme example, imagine i take one biceps exercise that is performed to great success by most people, i make a study to find if it does grow the biceps, but instead of measuring muscle growth directly, i decide to measure my (potentially wrong or as of yet incomplete) list of "things that would indicate that the muscle may grow" and with that alone i conclude that the exercise is not good at growing the biceps. I'd bet most people wouldn't take that as evidence.
Now, i don't really know where the truth lies in that topic, but measuring potential indicators of fatigue when fatigue is defined as a subjective experience above all is, to me at least, similar to not measuring muscle growth in the previous example. If people doing deadlifts tend to feel more fatigued, the fact that my list of potential fatigue indicators doesn't show that, intuitively at least, leads me to believe that the list (or the measurements of the elements on that list) is wrong or incomplete, not that people are not really fatigued.
100% I see where you're coming from. I certainly can't rule out the possibility we'll develop betters measures of CNS fatigue, and fatigue in general, especially how it relates to subjective perceptions.
@@HouseofHypertrophy I think the main reason why i tend to doubt this kind of physiological measures of subjective experience comes from the little i've heard about the science of pain from the people of barbell medicine and the like, if people can feel debilitating amounts of pain when no detectable injury is present now i tend to be more, lets say scared, when it comes to even slightly downplaying similar experiences due to just a lack of physiologically measurable confirmation of such experiences.
But then again, i know nothing about the topic, this was just to express how my intuition tingles.
Can you increase your CNS fatigue capacity? Because we can increase work capacity
There aint no way going for a jog is causing more CNS fatigue then maxing out on deadlifts. If studies show that then they are definitely flawed.
What is the difference between CNS fatigue and adrenal fatigue? isnt the same thing?
Sorry to be a pain in the arse, but if you touched on the concept that soreness = hypertrophy or the idea that inflammation is required for hypertrophy, can you link that video?
I'm not sure this is very trackable. At a high fitness level I've been well rested well carbed , not in a caloric deficit, a few times last year, when it was time to do the workout, i just couldn't perform. Took another rest day and all was back to normal. I feel like this is something that will happen from time to time and when it foes you just have to rest a bit more, anecdotally of course
If u do low volume 4-6 sets per session with low rep range 5-7 reps till failure while having 2-3 rest days in a week i don't think people should worry about fatigue.....
That is not necessarily true, if you mean 4-6 per muscle group per session. If 4 or 6 is the maximum amount of sets to maximize hypertrophy during one session (as it seems to be) it is quite possible to have too much fatigue still, especially if 2-3x a week.
@@joojotin recovery is what matters if ur recovering without any issues then u can do high frequency if u ain't then prolly reduce ur frequency and have extra rest days while for natural lifters who trains hard they need extra rest days...
I do 10 day PPL split I only do 4 sets for chest 4 for shoulder 3-4 for Tricep in a session my volume is low the focus is on progression the stronger u get the bigger u get...
Now taking about frequency here's how it looks like
Push
Pull
Off
Leg
Off
Repeat...I train the same muscle after every 5 days so fatigue is not issue for me...🤷
U can't out work a shitty programming
Ur programming is what matters based on ur recovery capabilities...
Note :- 4-6 sets is to create Myops Adaptation thats the driver of hypertrophy...
The house of hypertrophy looks more like a mansion these days, love to see it.
Haha, thanks dude!
How does this affect full body workouts multiple times a week?
Will training one very hard day or training more days, like 4 days. Will one hard day produce more muscle?
Uhhh wouldn't CNS fatigue be able to be measured in lipid profiles?
You wanna know about CSN fatigue? Do one Heavy Duty training session, PROPERLY, and it will come to you by the end of 30min of training and sitck with you for a MINIMUM of 24-36hrs SYSTEMICALLY 😅
is CNS fatigue the same as systemic fatigue?
I’ve always found squats at least as fatiguing as deadlifts.
I've always thought that "CNS Fatigue" is way overrated and almost a myth... sort of like "overtraining".
Thank u
I must ask, how do you vocalize these videos? I'm an intermediate strength trainer but I'm also a software engineer. Every time I listen to your videos, I realize many of the phrases (such as "hypertrophy") have the exact same pronunciation as if it's a software-generated voice. However in some cases I recognize an actual human speaking. What's your total process behind the microphone?
His voice is just like that. Look at his old vids to see his voice evolving.
My voice just tends to be monotone, but it's something I'm working on. All the voiceover is done by me with no special editing or AI, sometimes the audio may sound off as I might record a particular section (or correct something) at a different time
@@HouseofHypertrophy that's interesting, I was pretty sure it would include at least some automated voice generation. At least your voice is always excited, so it doesn't feel boring. Thanks for all the scientific meta analysis so I don't have to dig so deep to find the actual science being training!
Scientific kegel training next?
Noti gang gang 🔔
Is anyone else a fan of the shorter videos they used to do?
Naw
No. Complicated topics require in depth explanations with an audience who has a long enough attention span.
if anything I think he goes through these longer ones too fast, maybe needs to slow down a little.
Welcome to 1% club guys!
Thanks for the compliment 🫡
If 127/159/178 is well trained that means that so am i☺️
🫡
Salute❤🙏🏻
Thank you my friend 🙏🏻
No bro says “my cnf is fatigued” but still great content
Sorry Mike Mentzer HD isn't optimal
i think deadlifts have another main reason why you think they fatigue you more, and that is daily life use, unlike every other muscles your lower back gets used on pretty much everything, if u do a leg workout, having to walk or stand up or do anything with your legs quickly tells you how fatigued they are, but nowadays most of us sit down, however after a back workout everything you do daily makes you feel that fatigue in it, and my guess is feeling it so much during a day gives you a sense that its more fatigued even tho its not in comparison to any other muscle its just no other muscle gets used as much as the lower back area during a day, essentially we are just far more aware of fatigue in the lower back due to far more use, and this leads many people to think that its more fatigue, if u were to stay in bed all day after deadlifting you probably wont have this idea, but nobody does that :)
Fatigued? David Goggins has entered the chat.
just the day i feel like my cns is fried this video drop lol wtf
Haha, hope the video is insightful in some way :)
Do YOGA it will increase your CNS strength.
What your guys opinion on the only 3 exercise. I do bjj so listen to Joe Rogan and he said, chin up, push up and body weight squats will get you a good work out, and Im sure Arthur Jones said the same but dips instead of push up, but i always thought this isn’t enough. I train so much for bjj I’ve stopped working out. I know you guys will be the best to ask. Sorry house of hypertrophy for being of topic
Wake up babe it’s central nervous system day
This is why I do 4 sets
Set 1: 20 reps low weight
Set 2: 15 reps moderate weight
Set 3: 12 reps heavy weight
Set 4: 12 reps heavy weight with 5 - 10 partials
18:45
👍🏻👍🏻
Omg PNS why is everyone saying CNS
😅
Im just commenting so that you get more reach lol
Haha, thank you dude!
What kind of fatigue?
There is no such thing in Heavy Duty Training.
17:23 bro what is this... untrained men having more muscle than trained men
what's wrong?
Say CNS fatigue again 😂