yogabook / movement physiology / regeneration

Regeneration

In a narrower sense, regeneration in training theory only refers to the recovery of the muscles to their original performance level after it has been reduced by sporting training (or physical work), so this is to be understood as muscular regeneration. The loss of performance results from several factors, such as the depletion of intramuscular glycogen stores, the loss of electrolytes such as calcium and magnesium, the change in pH, the oxygen debt created in the tissues, the need to remove metabolites and metabolic hyperthermia. One of the most important metabolites to be broken down is lactate, the lactic acid that is formed when performance requirements exceed the lactate threshold. Regeneration renews cell tissue where necessary, replenishes stores, adapts the neuronal activation to the training if necessary and may also include the adaptation of organs to the requirements. Once regeneration is complete, the body ensures a slight increase in performance. This assumption of this effect is known as supercompensation theory . Supercompensation describes the (rather limited) phase and amount of increased performance as well as the effect as such. If there is a lack of sufficient regeneration over a longer period of time, performance continues to drop, which is referred to as overtraining. This increases the general risk of illness and the risk of injury to the musculoskeletal system.

The following experiment is an example of how you can quickly experience for yourself the necessity of muscular regeneration and the effect of overtraining on a small scale, even if it is not the same type of strain: perform some sets of heavy deadlifts to the limit of your capacity, so that the hamstrings are exhausted afterwards. The next afternoon (or even earlier or later) try running in the usual way and on a familiar circuit. A typical result of this experiment is that a clear lack of performance is observed in the hamstrings and a feeling of „lead in the backs of the legs“ is felt from the very first steps, even though the demands on the same muscle group are clearly different. The deadlift is a scaled maximum strength workout in the familiar pattern of lighter, heavier and maximum-heavy sets in which only a few repetitions are possible. In doing so, it utilizes a fairly large range of the available
ROM and is constantly under load for the duration of a set, but this oscillates in terms of its severity: it is at its maximum when the pelvis and upper body are horizontal, above this (with less flexion in the hip joints) and – if the pelvis and upper body are horizontal – lower down to zero
and – if flexibility permits: below (i.e. in greater flexion) it is also lower according to the gravitational effect of the partial body weight of the upper body, head, arms and external weight and their center of gravity of the moving mass, which is far away from the hip joints as the center of rotation.

Running, on the other hand, uses only a rather small part of the ROM and only in short load peaks, so it is clearly different from deadlifting in terms of the type of strain. Nevertheless, within 9-12 hours the regeneration of muscular resources is still completely inadequate, so that a clear drop in muscle performance compared to the usual level must be noted. There are hardly any risks in this two-stage experiment. The next two-stage experiment, on the other hand, has a certain risk of calf cramp or strain, so that the experiment must be stopped immediately at the slightest sign of their development. In the first part, perform an uttanasana for 5 minutes at a time if possible with the pelvis shifted as far forward (ventrally) as possible, and thus with the center of gravity maximally far ventrally that it just is not yet necessary to support yourself with the toes. If necessary, if the calf muscles are not yet sufficiently exhausted, you can then perform one or two other poses that also clearly challenge the triceps surae in the sense of a strength endurance exercise with a longer sarcomere length, e.g. 3rd warrior pose or simply vrksasana, in extreme cases even John‘s sequence. Then perform running in the usual way and on the usual lap within the next 6 hours.

This example shows that parts of the calf muscles are so exhausted from the previously performed asanas that in the following running easier than usual or even quite quickly not only the „lead feeling“ experienced in the first experiment occurs, but also the tendency to cramp, pull and tear is increased, which is why the warning given at the beginning applies, to stop the attempt immediately at the slightest sign of such an effect.