Adaptation

We understand that we become stronger by adapting to stress. In terms of physical, intellectual, and psychological prowess, successfully navigating or coping with stress is how we grow. I guess you could quote Nietzsche and/or Schwarzenegger (depending on your age and level of sophistication) and be DOB accurate. That which does not kill us makes us stronger … to an extent.


So training is the act of exposing our bodies to premeditated, structured stresses in order to illicit a specific growth response. The training must be enough to illicit the response without exceeding our ability to adapt to the stress. This goes back to my post on the S.A.I.D. principle (specific adaptation to imposed demands). Let’s say you’re a climber. If you train like an Olympic weightlifter, you might see an increase in explosive strength, but it is less likely that you will experience increased climbing ability.  Performing specific movements utilized in climbing will yield the best results in regards to skill level.  That is why you hear many climbers say that “climbing is the best exercise for climbing”.


It is important to note that the body’s supercompensation which follows the strategic uses of stress (ie training) can allow nearly continuous growth provided we do NOT exceed our individual ability to adapt to said stress. This does NOT mean that we only need to regularly increase the stress of training (progressive overload) in order to grow stronger. As a matter of fact, infomercials touting the “plateau busting” effects of linearly increased intensity workouts can only be effective in the short term. Anyone who has trained seriously for more than a few years learns that strategic use of stress requires one to alternate intensity of training periods to achieve maximal supercompensation with minimal injuries. The bottom line is that we grow and heal during the spaces in between heavy loading and not during. The trinity of strength has been and will always be training, diet, and rest.

to be continued ...