Questions regarding post competition recovery

[crash9mm]

I've recently completed a mock meet, took two days of rest, and trained with non specific, low intensity exercises like lunges, pull ups, db presses, and some arms. I was recked, my heart was pounding, and I needed to take longer rests. I limited the exercises to 1-3 sets. Previously I was told told to take a week off after lifting so Intensely, but recently I've seen posts mocking CNS fatigue and I don't get why. If one were to lift maximally what would be the protocol for post competition training/recovery? What is "CNS fatigue"?

[Alex Kovaleski]

If one were to lift maximally what would be the protocol for post competition training/recovery?

I would advise a low-stress or pivot week. This would involve lower intensities at roughly the same amount of volume, with exercise selection modified in a way that is slightly less specific. The average development cycle that I program includes a COMP, SDE, and SPE slot. The average pivot cycle that I program includes a COMP, SPE, and GPE slot. Google search the Bondarchuk exercise classification system for more information on these kinds of exercises.

What is "CNS fatigue"?

Your guess is as good as mine. It seems to be how people prefer to express that their training performance is not acceptable and they do not know why, or are unwilling to take a hard look at their training and figure out why. It is much easier for someone to place the blame on their central nervous system (which, now that I'm thinking about it, I've never heard someone say exactly what part of their CNS is problematic, which should spike one's Silly BS Detector) because this does not involve much effort. A more prudent way for one to act when suspecting "CNS fatigue" would be to recognize that their performance is not matching their expectations, determine if these expectations are realistic, examine their training to see what variables and trends may be contributing to this condition, and avoid placing pseudoscientific and unproductive labels on the situation. Recognize that a problem exists, make a real effort to solve the problem, and don't catastrophize is what I recommend for most situations one may face.

[Austin Baraki]

Here's an important paper to help understand fatigue:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5035715/