Supercompensatio cycle

Supercompensation is mostly relied to relation between work and recovery as a biologic basis for physical and psychological stimulus before the main competition. All individuas have specific quantity of biological functioning that dominates during normal daily activities. When unit trains, series of stimuli distracts normal biological condition built by burning of additional nutrition things. Final result of that burning is fatique and high concentration of lactic acid. In the end of training quantity of fatique temporarily decreases body functionality. Sudden decrease in homeostasis curve describes fast fatique action which presents in the same time decrease in functional capacity. After training and between two trainings body fills biochemical energy sources during the phase of compensation. For sportsmen normal biological behaviour always has to exist the balance between consumption and intake. During the compensation what is consumpted during training, has to be recovered. If you don’t do that, emptying of supplies will result with performance decrease.

Curve returnal to the normal biological condition is easy and progressive, which tells us that regeneration of body energy and its recharge an easy process that requires few hours. If the time between two high intensity trainings is longer, body will completely switch consumpted sources(glycogen especially). Athlete achieves that by creating the proper reserves, allowing body to return in the condition of supercompensation. Each time when it comes to supercompensation, an athlete gets new increased homeostasis quantity with positive effects on training and performance. Supercompensation should be viewed as the basis of functional performance improvement, at which it comes by body adjustment on training stimulus and charge of glycogen in muscles. If resulting phase or time between two stimuli is too long, supercompensation will weaken, which will lead into the phase of low progress in performance.

Supercompensation cycle look like this(see the picture below the bold text):

After use of exercises on training, body will feel fatique(phase I), during rest phase(phase II) biochemical supplies are not only charged, but also overcome normal quantities. Body completely compensates after which the phase of supercompensation goes(phase III), when higher adjustment appears, doubled by functional increase in sports result. If sportsmen doesn’t use a new stimulus in optimal time(during supercompensation phase), than it comes to involution(phase IV) that represents the lost of positive advantages that were given during supercompensatio phase.

After optimal stimuli on training, recovery phase, including supercompensation phase, lasts about 24 hours(Herberger, 1977). Variations in supercompensation depend of training type and intensity. For example, after aerobic endurance training, supercompensation can be appeared after 6-8 hours. On the other side, at intensive activity that puts high demands on nervous system, it may be needed more than 24 hours, and sometimes 36-48 hours, to appear supercompensation.

However, top athletes follow programes that do not enable 24 hours recovery between two trainings, they will do the second training before it comes to supercompensation. Quantity of improvement is bigger when sportsmen agree on more often trainings if trainings are not that often to stop the phase of supercompensation. Long term rests between trainings will result in lower total progress than short term rests. In this other case, sportsmen has to change energy compositions that he uses as it is proposed in microcycles training.

The power of various stimuli has direct influence to body reaction on training. The phase in which is overstated the maximum intensity stimuli will lead to exhaustion and decreased performance. That is typical stance of some coaches that have an intention to keep the image of toughness and hard work and that believe that sportsmen must reach exhaustion on every single training. Under these circumstances, athletes never have enough time for compensation, cause deep of the fatique curve goes deeper and deeper, which requires more time for regeneration, and not one more hard training. Regeneration will enable compensation and in the end supercompensation.

To constantly improve the performance, coach regularly has to challenge raising adjustment quantity at athletes. That means that coach has to plan alternately stimuli of high and low intensity so the days of high intense training change with the days of low intense training. That will improve compensation and will lead to wished supercompensation condition.

It is biologically necessary to reach supercompensation after some training because processes of body adjustment are superior related to previous training. That means the sportsmen is now reaching new homeostatic quantity, what can be spotted in the higher rate of training adjustment. As a result, from that spot new supercompensatio cycle needs to be started.

If, from the other side, compensation curve doesn’t reach or doesn’t pass the homeostatic quantity over, athlete will not have purpose from supercompensation. High fatique quantity challenged by non-stop high intensity training will stop supercompensatin and its biological uses for training promotion and reaching the top form. 

"Periodization, theory and methodology of training", Tudor Bompa