…To achieve an outstanding workout the athlete may have to dig deep into physiological, psychological, and emotional reserves to achieve that result. That potentially may detract from competition performance. The concept that has stood the test of time for me is Bill Bowerman’s concept of hard easy rhythm of training days. …
Many people subscribe to the notion of High/Low sequencing with respect to CNS and other physiological demands. However, you also mention emotional/psychological reserves. High/low cyclicity with respect to CNS reserves is not necessarily hard/easy in terms of perceived effort.
While obviously there needs to be emotional/psychological recovery. The issues of psychological demands is, in my experience, less an issue of CNS reserves (although dipping to deeply would have adverse psycholgical effects) but rather an issue of the degree of perceived effort. Even long, demanding, extensive tempo workouts can be of a high perceived effort and emotionally very taxing, while at the same time acting as a mechanism for physiological recovery.
My question then, is do you subscribe to the notion that hard easy rythym be one of not only CNS stress, but perceived effort as well?