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Use supercompensation — Why breaks are more important than workout
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Use supercompensation — Why breaks are more important than workout

Who knew relaxation was the key to increasing fitness?

Everyone knows how important exercise is for maintaining and increasing physical fitness. However, most people don't realize how crucial the post-workout recovery period is to the fitness-boosting process. During recovery, your body renews its energy, restores nutrients, and rebuilds muscle mass. After performing a challenging workout, once your body fully recovers, you will then enter a stage called 'supercompensation'. If you know how to use it, supercompensation can be a powerful tool for consistently increasing your physical fitness.

What is supercompensation anyway?

In a nutshell, supercompensation refers to a specific, post-workout, post-recovery period when your body has a higher performance capability than it did before your workout. It is therefore a matter of understanding a dynamic balance (also called homeostasis) between an athletic load and the body's adaptation response. Consequently, without a special stimulus that is repeated at certain intervals, there is no supercompensation phase and thus no increase in the performance level.

The 5 phases of supercompensation

  1. Training Period
    The first step is exercise. From the perspective of supercompensation, a workout session is only a way to initiate the adaptation process.
  2. Reduction of performance
    In other words, exercise applies a certain amount of stress on our body, decreasing its physical capabilities and preparing it for recovery benefits.
  3. Recovery period
    This is when the body restores itself. Our bodies are always trying to maintain their homeostasis, or physiological balance, which is what they do during our recovery from exercise.
  4. Supercompensation
    If a sufficient amount of training has been applied and followed by an adequate recovery time, your body will go into supercompensation mode, increasing your athletic performance.
  5. Detraining
    If recovery goes on too long, the supercompensation benefits will fade, and your body will begin to return to its pre-workout physical state.
The right strength training
The right training stimulus is determined by the right strength training. On the bellicon mini trampoline, you can perform various exercises to engage deep muscles. Learn more about strength training with the bellicon in the video.

Keep the cycle going

Ideally, the supercompensation cycle could be maintained indefinitely, producing ever-increasing performance levels. To do this, each new round of training needs to begin when supercompensation is peaking. However, if the following recovery period is too long or the training load too easy, the benefits of supercompensation are lost. The same loss of benefits applies if the training is too intense and the recovery time too short, a pattern that can lead to overtraining.

What happens when I start my next trainings session too early?

For people dedicated to improving their fitness, pushing themselves to do more can have benefits, but only to a point. When you push yourself beyond your ability to recuperate fully, you run the risk of overtraining, which can slow or reduce your performance and affect our health. It is therefore enormously important to find the right time to make optimal use of the supercompensation phase and thus increase the performance level. Some signs of overtraining are unusually pronounced and prolonged muscle soreness, a plateau or loss of performance ability, persistent fatigue, loss of appetite, and poor-quality sleep. In addition, though studies show exercise benefits our immune system, overexercising can impair it and open the door for more frequent bouts of illness.
The bellicon - benefit from micro and macro recovery patterns
The bellicon is an exceptional source for cardiovascular training and, as such, provides an ideal platform for applying supercompensation principles for dramatically increasing endurance and overall fitness.
The bellicon also provides a kind of 'micro-recovery' during exercise, which is one of the unique features of rebounding and one of the reasons it's so effective at improving fitness. At the lowest point of each bounce, gravitational forces are two to three times normal, but at the peak of each bounce, the gravitational force is zero. This moment of weightlessness provides a brief recovery period before descending and re-engaging your muscles.

How can I find my perfect supercompensation cycle?

Typically, supercompensation kicks in from one to two days after an intense workout and last for about the same amount of time. However, everyone is different regarding the amount of exercise and length of recovery needed to benefit from supercompensation. To find your supercompensation cycle, try to distinguish the patterns in your training that produce a recovery followed by higher performance and those that produce greater fatigue. Then, to test what you've discovered, adjust your workouts accordingly and see if the changes create the desired results. There are also electronic training devices and phone apps that can help you to calculate your supercompensation patterns.
Break does not mean not doing sports
Even though you should practice supercompensation by taking a few days off after an intense training stimulus, this does not mean that you need to avoid all exercise completely. You can use your workout break for some mobility exercises on your bellicon, for example. Learn more about how you can positively influence your performance with mobility exercises.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that training is only successful if the breaks are used optimally. This doesn't mean that you can't do any exercise at all for a few days, but that you should listen to your body to recognize what is good for you at the moment. Breaks are important in order to use the power of supercompensation and thus sustainably increase your performance level. In any case, with your bellicon mini trampoline you have a companion on hand that can guide you not only through intensive training phases, but also through relaxing training breaks and moments of relaxation.