When I think about exercise and working out, I usually think of the muscular system before the nervous system. It makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, the contracting muscles are making the movement. What we often forget about is the importance of each of the three systems that produce human movement. These three systems are the muscular, skeletal, and nervous system. All three of them are integral for optimum performance, but today I want to focus on the nervous system.
When we workout are bodies become subject to a lot of stress. The three systems are working hard to adapt to the stress that we place on each of them. This is why over training is such a big problem. When I was younger I would over train a lot. I thought that if I just worked out really hard then I would become stronger, and faster in record time. What I didn’t realize is that when I worked out too hard, my nervous system wasn’t able to recover. Of course, I eventually learned that there would be times where I would have to back off.
Improving our knowledge of how the nervous system works can help us to make our workouts more efficient. There are three main functions of the nervous system. They are the Sensory function, Integrative function, and the Motor function. Each function follows the last one. The sensory function allows the nervous system to sense a change in the external or internal environment whenever it occurs.
The Integrative function allows the nervous system to interpret and analyze the sensory information which allows us to make proper decisions when faced with an internal or external change. The Motor function is the actual neuro-muscular response that our bodies take to deal with an internal or external change. When we know how many different things are body’s have to do, we realize that we have to allow time for adaptation.
