Supercompensation, the secret weapon of advanced athletes?

Recovery is often in the spotlight, but to optimize your training schedules you need to look beyond it: it is an entire process that should be improved, from exertion and recovery to session planning. Done properly, this will allow you to benefit from supercompensation. We’ll guide you.

The Effects of Training

Physical exercise produces many changes within the body, which can be more or less direct. The effects of training are usually grouped into three types: immediate effects (the effect of a single session), delayed effects (the interval between two sessions), and cumulative effects (resulting from all the sessions).

The immediate effect of training is the best known: it consists of observable changes during and at the end of a session, such as oxygen consumption and varying heart and respiratory rates.

The delayed training effect is more complex because it depends on the time allowed between two sessions:

• With a short recovery phase, you exert yourself again while feeling less fresh than before. This helps your body get used to dealing with fatigue and repeated efforts.
• With sufficient recovery, you can resume training in as good shape as during your first session. Your training load is therefore identical.
• If you recover more before beginning a new effort, this is known as supercompensation.

Triathlon, a Sport for the Expendables?

Finally, there is the cumulative training effect, corresponding to the effect of all the sessions and representing the main phenomenon on which the principle of supercompensation is based. This is what enables many triathletes to improve their performance over the years. Although MAP (Maximum Aerobic Power, which corresponds to the power reached at maximum oxygen consumption) levels off at around age 20, the percentage of MAP that an athlete can use during prolonged exercise increases with training. Beyond speed, triathlon is above all a matter of experience: it is by running and training at the right pace that you develop it.

Supercompensation for Improving Endurance

To improve your endurance, there is no secret: you need to listen to your body and remain skeptical of miracle training schedules. There is no universal magic formula for training; everyone needs to find their own rhythm through trial and error. Nevertheless, a few principles help structure your training and establish consistency, an essential element for making the most of the principle of supercompensation.

Thus, working in cycles by alternating intense cycles with lighter cycles helps promote supercompensation: if there is no variation in the intensity of the effort, there is no “stress” for the body, so it does not supercompensate. In addition, recovery is at the heart of supercompensation: effective recovery is essential for completing successive training sessions. The three pillars of recovery are simple: eat well, drink well, and sleep well. After exertion, the body must replenish its reserves, so you should seek sources of salt, vitamins, amino acids, and minerals.

To make the most of supercompensation, you must therefore resume exertion at the right time: when properly implemented, this technique allows you to make the most of the cumulative effect of training and increase your capacity from one workout to the next.