Nutrition and Wellness

What Is Nervous System Fatigue and How Does It Affect You?

January 08, 2025 4 min read

In the world of fitness and sports, we often talk about muscle fatigue and recovery, but there’s another crucial aspect of training that deserves attention: nervous system fatigue.

Understanding what nervous system fatigue is and how it affects you can help optimize your training, improve performance, and prevent burnout.

What Is Nervous System Fatigue?

Nervous system fatigue, also known as central fatigue, occurs when your central nervous system (CNS) becomes overworked due to intense physical or mental activity.

Your CNS, which includes your brain and spinal cord, is responsible for sending signals to your muscles to contract and perform movements. When you engage in strenuous activities, particularly those requiring high levels of strength, power, or endurance, your CNS can become taxed. This leads to a decline in performance and overall fatigue.

Causes of Nervous System Fatigue

Intense Physical Training: Heavy lifting, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and prolonged endurance workouts can all place significant stress on the CNS.
Lack of Recovery: Insufficient rest between workouts doesn’t allow your CNS to recover, leading to cumulative fatigue.
Mental Stress: High levels of mental stress and anxiety can also contribute to CNS fatigue, as the brain is constantly in overdrive.
Sleep Deprivation: Poor sleep quality or inadequate sleep can impair CNS function, making it harder to recover from workouts.

Symptoms

Recognizing the signs of CNS fatigue is crucial for adjusting your training and recovery strategies. Common symptoms include:

Decreased Performance: A noticeable drop in strength, power, and endurance during workouts.
Prolonged Muscle Soreness: Muscles take longer to recover, and soreness persists for extended periods.
Increased Perceived Effort: Workouts feel harder than usual, even at the same intensity levels.
Mental Fog and Irritability: Difficulty concentrating, feeling mentally drained, and increased irritability.
Sleep Disturbances: Trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or experiencing restful sleep.

How Nervous System Fatigue Affects You

Performance Decline: When your CNS is fatigued, it can't effectively send signals to your muscles, leading to reduced strength, slower reaction times, and overall decreased performance.
Increased Injury Risk: Fatigued muscles and impaired coordination can increase the risk of injuries during training and competition.
Prolonged Recovery: CNS fatigue slows down the recovery process, making it harder to bounce back from workouts and leading to longer periods of suboptimal performance.
Mental Burnout: Persistent CNS fatigue can lead to mental burnout, reducing motivation and making it difficult to stick to your training routine.

Managing Nervous System Fatigue

Prioritize Recovery: Ensure you’re getting adequate rest between workouts. Incorporate active recovery, such as light cardio or stretching, to help your CNS recover.
Optimize Sleep: Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night. Good sleep hygiene practices, like maintaining a regular sleep schedule and creating a restful environment, can improve sleep quality.
Balanced Training: Alternate between high-intensity and low-intensity workouts to give your CNS time to recover. Avoid overloading your training schedule with back-to-back intense sessions.
Mindfulness and Stress Management: Incorporate stress-reducing practices like meditation, deep breathing exercises, or yoga to help manage mental stress.
Nutrition and Hydration: Proper nutrition and hydration play a vital role in CNS recovery. Ensure you’re fueling your body with a balanced diet and staying hydrated throughout the day.

Conclusion

Nervous system fatigue is a critical factor that can impact your training and overall well-being. By understanding its causes, symptoms, and effects, you can make informed decisions about your training regimen and recovery strategies.

Prioritizing recovery, optimizing sleep, balancing your workouts, managing stress, and maintaining proper nutrition can help mitigate CNS fatigue. Thus allowing you to train more effectively and achieve your fitness goals.

For more insights on training, recovery, and performance, stay tuned to our blog and subscribe to our newsletter!

FAQ

Porrada is a Portuguese term commonly used in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) and Brazilian culture to describe a tough, intense, and gritty style of training or fighting. The direct translation of porrada from Portuguese to English is "beating" or "brawl." It embodies the spirit of going all out, giving your maximum effort, and pushing through challenges. In BJJ, practicing porrada means training with high intensity and determination.

This website is a collection of resources curated by grapplers, for grapplers. Our goal is to provide you with all the information you need to succeed. Whether you want to learn about nutrition, training on the mats, lifting, or anything in between, we are here for you. We want to see you on the podium most of all, and we hope to help you do exactly that. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email or DM us on any of our social profiles!

There are two main ways you can get started with training: 1) You can find a BJJ gym near you and do a trial day, or 2) you can create your own mini home gym and start training with friends. Option #2 is how our team at Porrada got started! We ordered 1-inch thick puzzle mats in a 10’x10’ square and began training using online resources. If you do start with the second option, we recommend eventually finding a gym down the road in your career. It will help you by allowing you to roll with more people and receive high-level instruction.

BJJ is quite similar to wrestling. Both start standing and use takedowns as a method to score points. Both use very similar mechanics overall. The main differences are that there are no pins (you can be on your back in Jiu-Jitsu), BJJ involves submissions, and the points system for each is very different. BJJ grants points for takedowns/sweeps, back control, mount, guard passes, and knee on belly. Wrestling grants points for takedowns, escapes, and back points (back exposure for freestyle).

BJJ is a very unique sport in many ways. There are so many incredible benefits to training Jiu-Jitsu. The biggest reasons we advocate for it are the mindset training and the added ability to defend yourself. In BJJ, you are forced to humble yourself over and over again, every single day. This sport is a great way to mature rapidly and generally become a better person (in our opinion). You will also have a better ability to defend yourself than 99% of the population—a pretty big bonus.

You’re never too old to start training! We see people on the mats of all ages and sizes. Large and small, old and young can, and should, train BJJ. If you are on the older side, it is perfectly acceptable to take it slow and learn at your own pace. You don’t always have to go full speed—don’t worry. There are typically also classes that separate people by goals. Certain classes are for those who want to compete, some are for general instruction, and some are specifically for self-defense teachings. There is a place for everyone on the mats.