Mal-Adaptation?

A woman reports her husband’s disappearance to the police.  They ask her for a description, and she says, “He’s six feet, three inches tall, well-built, with thick, curly hair.”  Her friend says, “What are you talking about?  Your husband is five feet four, bald and has a huge belly.”  And she says, “Who wants that one back.”

Adaptation occurs all the time in strength and conditioning program.  The goal is to anticipate and to avoid mal-adaptation.  Huh?  

Basically, if we give a person an activity to do every day over a long enough timeline, that person will adapt to the activity.  It will go from being work to being normal activity.  There are many elements that determine how quickly adaptation occurs.  Rest, nutrition, stress, and activity levels can all determine how quickly / slowly adaptation occurs.  The trick is to plan on adaptation and to manipulate basic training elements before mal- adaptation occurs.  Here’s where the G.A.S.S. principle comes into play.

The G.A.S.S. principle (the general adaptation to stress syndrome) occurs in the following way:  when stress or stimulus is originally given to a person, the system experiences a drop in its ability to manage the stress or stimulus.   The body ultimately adapts to the stress.  If the stress does not change, there is a point at which we get diminishing returns for our effort and the same effort yields fewer results.  Without change, we get into injuries.

 Ever brush your teeth with your non dominant hand?  For those of us who are not ambidextrous, we are not very good at brushing our teeth immediately.  If you do it often enough, you get better!  T hat’s called adaptation!  The same is true for exercise.   With a new stimulus our body (system) experiences a drop in ability.  But the skill can be learned with enough time and practice.  It goes from being exercise to activity. 

Once we adapt to the stimulus, we establish a new level of ability or skill.  Now if we continue to do that new skill or ability we run the risk of diminishing returns.  That simply means with more effort, we don’t get the same or more results: we can possibly injure ourselves.   Before over use occurs, we have to change the stimulus in order to get more change.    There’s a drop in the system again, and we start the process all over again.

How often do we have to change the stimulus?  That depends on each individual and how quickly they learn whatever skill they are trying to build.  Keep in mind that when I say skill I mean everything from gaining strength to explosive activity to any physical skill one can learn.  

Mal adaptation is basically an injury that has occurred to someone who hasn’t changed their workout program.  Ever happen to you?  Shin splints from running, shoulder injuries, hip injuries, back pain and many other problems could be examples of overuse injuries that we may experience when we don’t change our workout program at the right time. It's not about "Changing it up" for changes sake.   It's about a progression that makes sense determined by your fitness level and your goals.

If you have any questions about your workout program, please don’t hesitate to contact me at:

Pcmtrain1@hotmail.com or any exercise professional.  Find out.

Mo-tate.  Motivate your life to motion.