Goldilocks and the Central Nervous System

by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS

What does Goldilocks and the Central Nervous System (CNS) have in common?  They both like things “just right”.  When we look at the popular children’s book, “Goldilocks and the 3 Bears”, we find that Goldilocks struggled to find things that fit her just right.  The dining chairs were initially too big or too small.  The porridge was either too hot or too cold.  The beds were either too hard or too soft.

It wasn’t until she kept working and searching that she found a chair that was the right size for her and porridge that tasted perfect to her and a bed that was really comfortable that allowed her to fall fast asleep.  Goldilocks’ persistence and patience allowed her to find the things that worked just right for her.  Some might think of her as picky.  I prefer to think of her as a great lesson about training clients and patients.

Training the CNS is a lot like Goldilocks.  If we train the CNS too much or with too much intensity, we will quickly burn it out.  Frying a CNS can lead to chronic fatigue and short term injuries due to lack of control of the body’s extremities.

Too much stimulus if often a short term problem.  This happens when you stack up a lot of high neuro load activities into a single workout when they either aren’t ready for it, or their CNS is already fatigued when you introduce the training stimulus.  High neuro load activities typically include single limb exercises, anything involving an unstable surface or implement and/or total body movements that are often explosive with high force production.

We also see neurological fatigue on more of a chronic basis with training over time.  I see this with some of our college athletes when they have trained hard for several years without time off or a significant change in their training programs.  Constantly feeding the CNS over and over will eventually lead to chronic fatigue.

On the flip side, if we don’t give the CNS enough stimulus, we won’t see progress.  We have to get it excited and feed it in order to get better.  Without the proper CNS training, you are limiting the patient or client’s athletic ability.  An example of undertraining the CNS would be a program that primarily consisted of cardio training, selectorized machines and/or single joint movements.

Because the Central Nervous System is responsible for things like balance, gait and stability, if we don’t train the CNS enough, we will see poor performance and injuries due to things like falls, poor control and poor mechanics under times of fatigue.

So the take home here is, just like Goldilocks, the CNS prefers things to be “just right.”  Too much or too little training will lead to poor performance and injuries.

How do we get this “just right”?  Here are a few keys to training the Central Nervous System:

• Perform high neuro load exercises.  This includes total body exercises, movements that require a load to be moved quickly, single limb exercises, activities that require you to cross midline, and train with a variety of surfaces and implements.  These choices help us to give the CNS a lot of stimulus.
• Train right up to the neural edge, but not over it.  I have talked about this a lot in the past.  The goal is to bump right up to the individual’s edge of control, but not past the point of control.  Challenge them, but help them maintain control.
• Vary the training stimulus.  Variety is the spice of life.  Building a lot of variety into a training program will increase the load on the CNS, but also limit it’s fatiguing effect.  This includes variety in exercises, loads, volumes and programming both short term and long term.  Proper programming is complicated and challenging to do it well when you work with someone over a long period.
• Recover.  Rest is our friend.  Proper recovery ensures that the CNS can settle down between training session and ensure that they are ready to train hard again.  The importance of recovery cannot be overstated.
• Appreciate everything that stresses the CNS.  We need to understand that there are a ton of things that stimulate our CNS that are outside of training and rehab sessions.  This includes stressors from work and family, sleep issues, and even the amount of time we spend staring at screens.  All of these things impact the CNS and we need to understand and appreciate them and be willing to adapt our programming when needed.
• Listen and watch.  Our patients and clients tell us all that we need to know, as long as we are attentive.  When they break down, it is probably time to change something.  If they aren’t improving, it’s probably time to look deeper.  If they tell you that they are struggling, it is probably for a reason.
• Individualize training.  Even in group sessions, it is important to make adjustments and adaptations to meet the needs of each person.  Pay attention to the needs of each person to maximize the effect on the CNS.

Giving the CNS the right amount of stimulus should be one of the main goals of all of our training.  We want to be like Goldilocks and work hard to find training methods that are “just right.”