Join the Evolve Exercise Science Series!
“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.”
~Anthony J. D’Angelo
Training principles and exercise physiology terms thrown out by your training buddies, coaches, and endurance sport magazines are understandably intimidating. Nod your head in questionable agreement no more!
Knowledge can be dangerous but it can also empower you to become a better person, athlete, and positive influence.
Evolve Multisport wants to empower you to make the best decisions regarding your health and training! Join us each month for our newsletters and here on the website to learn about how to train, why to train, and everything in between!
Live it. Love it. Train for it.
~Marisa Carter
Lesson #1: Progressive Adaptation
The goal of every training program.
Simply put, the body will change itself to adapt when stress is placed upon it. The key thing to remember is that the stress must be delivered in a manner that is appropriate, precise, and that will enable the body to better handle subsequent stress of the same type.
The adaptation process should include the following elements:
1. Specificity - adaptation is specific to the stress applied. For instance, if you want to race in the 200m sprint races you will NOT run slow and long everyday. You would instead run shorter distances and focus on developing speed.
2. Duration of Adaptation - repeated stimuli of the same type usually results in change after 21-28 days. Anything past that, adaptation is minimal. So, the trick here is to commit to consistency but then to offer new but specific challenges every several weeks. (This relates to ‘Periodization’, which will will cover in upcoming months.)
3. Compensation & Supercompensation - When a training stimulus is applied to the body, an immediate decrease in ‘fitness’ is the result. However, after this initial decrease, as the body recovers and adapts, fitness increases. This new state of fitness undergoes a process called: supercompensation (recovery past point of initial ‘fitness’). If the body isn’t continually stressed, zero gains are the result. But excessive stimuli may depress the fitness without adequate recovery and little effect if any is gained.
***Progressive adaptation is a fundamental principle of Evolve Multisport. This is why you will never see generic training plans without communication with its clients!
