Soviet Secrets - Training the CNS - what I've learnt Part 1

Instability Breeds Stability - The Central Nervous System, Neural Plasticity & Neural Blueprinting

Getting the best from the long jump, triple jump or sprinting requires a training programme that merges the physical with the psychological and the neural.

The Soviets realised this decades before the rest of the world and they trained their athletes this way initially within a "Functional System" approach. Let’s take a look at FS; what came after and in particular make reference to what appears to be the fulcrum – the Central Nervous System.

Social Media

Recently on social media there has been a small but noticeable rise in the number of pages talking in detail about CNS training. And, I guess I am amongst them.

I have been training the CNS since I started coaching over 15 years back – although I perhaps did not fully realise this!

I have always mixed and matched drills and movements and set challenges for the jumpers and sprinters I coach. Nearly all my coaching career I have used restricted arm movement drills, for example.
These means that the athlete cannot use their arms to contribute to the sprinting or jumping action because they may be, for example: holding a bar overhead, cradling a medicine ball or having their hands on their hips.

I saw this to be a great way to physically and technically develop the hip complex. The hip flexors and extensors are the axel around which the legs spin and the more power there is in this area the greater the speed generated everything else being equal.
Technically I referenced these and other drills against a belief that the constraints would challenge the athletes to “learn” how to better utilise their hips to sprint and jump and increase their power.

Enter the CNS...

I hadn’t quite made the connection to the CNS.
The CNS is an information highway in the body. The brain sends signals (electrical and chemical) via the spinal-chord out to all parts of the body. These signals are interpreted and action occurs. This can be conscious and unconscious.
When you take-off in the long jump you need to hit the board and move from it at optimal speed. The CNS will be working flat out (hopefully) in order to hit the board, position on the penultimate and leave the board, with the most effective technique and with minimal braking. So, the CNS will be constantly “scanning” – sending out signals and responding to these. If the flow of these signals is unrestricted - and let’s call it of high frequency - then movement will be optimised.

Enter the Soviets...

As noted, the connection between the psychological and physical systems was made very early by the Soviets in terms of systematised sports training. This was broadly labelled as Functional Systems training as noted again earlier.
The work of the Soviet sports psychologist Avksenty Puni was very much instrumental in this.

The Soviets wanted to create resilient, robust and adaptable athletes. Indeed, this philosophy was also applied to the training of their soldiers and cosmonauts.
Part of the FS approach was the desire to train via “self-organisation methods”. This appears to be the precursor of the more systematised CNS training methods employed later by the Soviets probably from around the seventies.

Issurin...

The work of Vladimir Issurin is significant here – indeed, I have come across him in terms of my previous work as a health, fitness and sports writer. Issurin bridges the gap to the contemporary world of sports training from Puni and FS.
His focus is on "Coordination Abilities", trainability and training strategies for elite sport.
And here the training under unpredictable conditions appears again. And more of a connection to the CNS is made via Soviet coaching methodology.

It appears that I had been training within the FS and CS Soviet (and wider world of sports training) approaches before I knew it (or at least more fully understood what I was doing and why).

By using unpredictability and variation the athlete “learns” to be more effective at their discipline and their CNS becomes better equipped to master and optimise their performance. There are a myriad of ways to do this - but there has to be a method behind this and there is also a further "hidden ingredient".

In the next part I will look at the CNS training philosophies of renowned Soviet Coaches, such as Ozolin (Coordination First School) and TerOvanesyan (Power, control, variability), some of the "Methods" and talk more about how I do things and why I see it working.