“Today I’m going to go over with you the concept of supercompensation. When we do an assessment on someone we test their base level of fitness. The base level could be exactly where they are at today and then we go over to where we want to take them. So the end game helps create the program for us but supercompensation happens for everybody who’s training, and if you move outside of this model, your results are going to be diminished.

So, let me explain how the process works. If I test someone’s base level of fitness while I’m testing them or while they are working out, they are actually fatiguing the body. They’re breaking down the muscle;  they are actually losing glycogen, ATP in the muscle. Calcium helps contract the muscle and the magnesium relaxes the muscle, they’re losing minerals, your nervous system’s getting fatigue, your immune system actually goes down slightly right? but this is also benefit because when you build back the body your immune system gets stronger. So while you’re working out you are actually fatiguing the body.

Okay, so your base level is right here (please see the video). Now you’re fatiguing the body; the changes occur when you go home, you eat, sleep and drink water right? I did a video on Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness; you might have some muscle soreness. So the changes occur when you go home, you eat, sleep and drink water. Now your body has an amazing ability to adapt to whatever stress is being put on and it recovers at a better state. It is what’s called Supercompensation.You have to train in that period again in a progressive, scientific way to see results. If not, you are gonna end up back down here and won’t get the results. So, for an example, running one day a week and swimming one day a week you are not gonna get better at either. Initially, if you have not been doing anything you might see a little bit of results, but you’re not going to really see any strides in that type of training scenario. So, it’s got to be a progressive, scientific way to get you to the next level of whatever are your goals.

So, 2x a week is typically a better minimum to see results. 3x a week you see about 33% more results, right? Because you are training 1/3 of the time more. 4x a week you see about 25% more results and this depends on the training program. A good training program, you can really maximize results; bad training program who knows where it’s going to take you. Now, if you train too much, too hard, too often, you can go into overtraining. The chances that I’ve seen of that happening in the general population is very slim to none so I don’t think you’re at a, you know, risk of that for the most part, but it does happen.

So, supercompensation: we fatigue the body, we put stress on the body then the body recovers, and it recovers at a better state in preparation for that next level of stress, which that stress should be within a threshold that your body can handle for safety reasons, for not going into overtraining or pushing too hard or exerting, because if you do push too hard, too much you can cause yourself to get sick if it lowers the immune system, and then intaking the right nutrients so that you build your body back up. This is why a protein and good simple carbs after training helps the process of repairing, etc. So simple model supercompensation you want to make sure you have a training program that can take you in progressive steps to get you to burn fat, gain lean muscle and feel good, which is typically what everybody is looking for the most part. There you have it. I hope this helps. Have a great day! Ian Hart with EarthFIT training.”

Ian Hart is a Body-Mind Transformation expert, the creator of EarthFIT Training Systems, co-creator of BACK PAIN RELIEF4LIFE, and founder of BEAUFORTPERSONALTRAINING.COM and MYBACKPAINCOACH.COM. Ian and his team help people get into optimal shape in the safest, fastest and most effective way possible, using cutting edge science.