More is Less!
by Phill Wright
So, youâre training regularly and feeling great right?? Well, you were until your body adapted to this awesomely active routine and now itâs simply habit and actually itâs becoming a little (very) frustrating. The harder you push yourself, the more fatigued you seem to become and the less you seem to be seeing any benefit. Youâre still highly motivated and getting to the gym isnât the problemâŚin fact, youâre almost training every day! Sound familiar? If so then you and your body are most certainly in need of a training interventionâŚa break, a changeâŚa complete refocus. There is no need to worry or panic, you are simply in a routine that is no longer serving you. The thing is, exercise can become pretty addictive, after all, it feels good to move and your body was never designed to sit down for hours on end. After a nice hot shower it feels great to walk from the gym after a training session with that âI know Iâve just trainedâ feeling in your musclesâŚalmost too nice and actually, that post session sensation can hook you into a rather permanent state of muscle-numbness.
If this is all starting to sound freakishly familiar then it might be time to rethink your habits.
There are a few things at play here:
Firstly, there is the law of diminishing returns. The fitter you get, the leaner you become and the more finely tuned your body becomes, the less room there is for big improvements. Letâs take a look at opposite ends of the spectrum; a newcomer to a fat loss programme. If they have a lot to lose and they follow the guidance they will stand a very good chance of being the biggest loser in those first few weeks and this works well for the programme as it gives a nice big âfatâ welcome to those just getting started. And conversely, take an olympic sprinter, Â their training cycle is 4 years. Think about all the training sessions, dedication and sacrifice across 48 months that goes into the potential of chopping a hundredth of a second off their PB.
Secondly, there is the law of adaptation. Your body is the smartest and most sophisticated machine on the face of this planetâŚwell, second to that of a stealth leopard* but itâs still pretty remarkable. The body adapts very quickly to what it is subjected to. Whether itâs a change in temperature, climate or new types of training, your body will adapt to these pretty rapidly and figure out how to efficiently overcome / manage them. From a training perspective this means that over a period of time (and in some instances just weeks), your body starts to benefit less. Why is this? Well, your body is able to overcome the activities with less effort meaning that the recovery process is quicker and the subsequent adaptations are less (read more on how training works here).
Finally, there is the more psychological aspect and this can often be the most challenging. We are all human and like it or not we are ruled by emotion. We laugh, we cry, we get excited, we grieveâŚwe are driven by emotion. Emotions affect our energy levels, our state of mind, our ambition (or lack of)âŚour every decision! When we form new habits, we emotionally adapt to them and build a new set of beliefs shaped around these activities. We believe that our lifestyle choices are correct and rightfully so, thereâd be little point committing to activities that you didnât believe in. However, just like muscles, our mind becomes conditioned to what weâre presenting it with. If youâve become accustomed to HITT training or going heavy then both physically and mentally your body is used to training at high intensities. This does not mean that training at high intensities is the only way to train and get the results you seek, it simply means that you have created those conditions for your time in the gym and you have become used to them. The thought of training at low intensities or with low weights is likely something that you wouldnât value, why would you? Your body is designed for the fast lane and anything falling short of this is simply inadequate. Does this mean that low intensity training wouldnât provide your body with heaps of benefit? Not one bit!!! It simply doesnât register in the conditions you have set yourself. Chances are it would actually be a lot more beneficial than another hard-ass session, convinced?
The easiest way to understand this is by considering yourself and your body as a machine (which it is). If you owned the most precious machine on the planet, as well as taking care of it youâd likely be keen to make sure that it operated maximally. And to do this youâd fuel it, service it, work it at different gears and levels, give it time off and be careful not to overdo it when firing on all cylinders. Your body is no different! Your body needs different intensities and a bit of TLC. If you want to be fast then you need to spend time working on efficiency; if you want to be strong then you need to build a solid foundation and work on technique; if you want to a great physique then think about the muscles the mirror isnât showing. Avoid the trap of using exercise as a short term fix. An effective programme includes different training types, working at different intensities and is progressive. And more than that, an effective training programme should be considerate of your mindset and how you approach training. If you enjoy different training types, different intensities and rather than just focussing on the outcome you are able to enjoy the journey then you are well centred on the right track.
It was never survival of the fittest but of those most adaptable to change. And whilst weâre not talking about escaping from dinosaurs, if you want your exercise habits to stick around and keep you active well into later life then change should be a constant and something to embrace.Â
*stealth leopards do not exist, they were temporarily created to add impact to this blog
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