Supercompensation, Antifragility and the beautiful concept of incremental progress

Supercompensation; Def. (in the context of exercise and fitness)

When a system of the body is put through a crisis state commonly through physical activity/ working out and then allowed to restore itself through its natural regenerative processes, the stress/ recovery process results in what is termed training effect. [1]

These adaptive mechanisms result in a process known as supercompensation, where by your body overcompensates and ends up at a higher fitness level than before the stress of training was applied.

An increase in your capability as a result.

The small increase in fitness facilitated by the stress and recovery is called SUPERCOMPENSATION.

And keep doing that consistently over time and you have an improved performance, the basics of any structured training system.

A recipe for Antifragility

The Author Nassim Taleb defined the beautiul concept of Antifragility, Things that gain from stress, disorder and uncertainty rather than weaken or just break.

He further goes on to explain how almost all of natural processes that has successfully changed through time, from ideas, recipes, vaccines and bacterial resistance, political ideas, to human evolution, rise of cities, culture, equatorial forests and more has at its center the property of antifragility.

Supercompensation as a voluntary training mechanism over time can be viewed as a recipe for antifragility, to become stronger by applying stress to a system.

The basic idea being more stress and training you under go, the stronger you become, provided you recovery properly through right nutrition and enough rest. a scientific explanation for the unanimous age old quote, “The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.”

The voluntary incremental taking on of adversity becomes the way to progress. As Marcus Aurelius,, "What stands in the way becomes the way."

Intellectual Supercompensation

As Nassim Taleb observed the principle across domains, and Naval corroborated for the intellectual doamin when we observed, “Knowledge workers function like athletes — train and sprint, then rest and reassess.”

Although rest equates to different concepts in the intellectual realm, for example rest and recovery for a lot of prolific mathematicians is music and musical instruments which we have been able to scientifically prove that, using one part of the brain in an intense way for a while and using other parts of the brain is beneficial to both( focused and diffuse brain networks) and spending time in nature plays an important role as well in the intellectual play, and the actual rest of enough sleep rests supreme before other forms in all domains. [2]

Another example of intellectual application would be of improving memory, It is greatly achieved through spaced repetition, reading something, resting and reading the same again in an increasingly spaced time and rest. [3]

A common adage that, “Naps are steroids for the brain.” the basic principle of supercompensation that rest allows the natural human process of regenerative process to compensate and accommodate new thinking patterns and for new ideas to take shape.

Philosophical Underpinnings

The concept of Supercompensation is reflected in philosophy through the concept of voluntary taking on increasingly difficult challenges.

A anectode to the Journey of the Hero from Joseph Campbell.

An antidote to the difficulties of life as suggested by Jordan Peterson, “Keep taking on more and more responsibility, and you will become someone capable of more.”

To be an Eternal Explorer of life.

Common Pitfalls: Taking shortcuts

The most common obstacle to achieving supercompensation is Short term thinking, as in trying to bypass the supercompensation process by doing too much too soon.

The most common reason for early termination of athletic careers is overuse injury, basically training too much and not having enough rest and nutrition to facilitate the prcoess of the body's natural supercompensation.

A common statistic now of 70% of all runners get overuse injury every year.

A stressed out person is less likely to think in the best possible solution in the overall context,

As the prescription from Leonardo da Vinci goes to over come creative blocks, “Step away from the canvas.” If you are stuck in a creative rut, his suggestion was to take a walk alone, better with nature and return to the canvas, you will most likely have the solution and at the very least an idea of the next steps.

Notes

1. Extrapolation, Being Infinite

It is a much debated subject if we have reached our limits either intellectual or physcial, more wiggle room the intellectual facet.

Scientifically human physical limitations are most affected by mucle contractions and energy production among the other factors.

But we are discovering new empirical evidence that another most important factor is the mind even in the physcial realm. [4]

Either way a sustainable and sure fire way to reach and transcend our limits is by leveraging the principle of supercompensation across domains in the long term.

Jennifer Davis explains in her book, “The pursuit of endurance”, observes through anecdotal the vast majority of people who finish mamoth endurance pursuits that last weeks or months, and what separates them people who give up is that they believe in religion or doing it for something more than themself, that during the toughest of times it helps that there is something more than themselves there and that gives them meaning and keeps them going. [5]

2. Intellectual

It is observed that spending time in nature is beneficial to the mind, and we have enough anecdotal data that it would on itself stand as empirical evidence that, almost all nobel laurates are avid hikers and marathon runners, not just runners but with excellent times. [6]

And all the intellectuals we know have had the same sentiment about the spending time in nature from Einstein, Newton, Naval, Bill gates, across time.

Bibliography

[1] Steve House, Scott Johnston. 2014. Training for New Alpinism: A manual for the climber as athlete, Patagonia Books.

[2] [6] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, 2018, Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, Penguin Life.

[3] Joshua Foer, 2011, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Penguin Press.

[4] Alex Hutchinson, 2018, Endure: Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, HarperCollins.

[5] Jennifer Pharr Davis, 2018, The Pursuit of Endurance: Harnessing the Record-Breaking Power of Strength and Resilience, Viking.