How Exercise Works
A New paradigm for understanding exercise
In order to understand ARX, it is important to understand how exercise really works.
If you train clients—or have made exercise a part of your lifestyle—you can reap huge benefits by focusing on the “active ingredients” that make exercise effective while eliminating elements that are unnecessary or counterproductive.
The infographic below shows why the “more is better” crowd is misinformed, why your body’s capacity to recover is more important than we think, and how the desired results from exercise are actually produced.
Here is our model of the 21st-century paradigm of exercise:
Pretty easy to understand. .. right?
Step One, you administer the stimulus or the “workout.” Then the body—given enough time, rest, and proper nutrition—produces the adaptation, in this case, the desired results from resistance exercise.
Defining the Workout Stimulus
So what exactly do we mean by “the stimulus?” What—specifically—is the demand placed on the muscles that will provoke an adaptive response from the body? In this often-cited paper, Brad Schoenfeld identifies three primary elements to the exercise stimulus:
- Mechanical Tension—the “weight on the bar,” or how much force the muscle is made to produce
- Muscle Damage—the physical microtrauma to the muscle fibers and their filaments
- Metabolic Stress—the degree of fatigue of the target muscles, along with the accumulated metabolic byproducts of that fatigue
The Workout Stimulus is Step One
So, we want to deliver the stimulus to the target muscles in a sufficient magnitude that the body is provoked into producing a response, but we want the stimulus to be calibrated so that it does not overwhelm the body’s capacity to adapt.
Where the Magic Actually Happens
This is the main reason why “more is not better.” The workout stimulus is just Step one—and is needed to place a strong enough demand on the body to provoke an adaptive response—and can often be overemphasized by well-meaning but misinformed coaches and trainers.
Step 2 in our model is where the magic happens. Hence why a smart resistance exercise program will begin and end with discussions about sleep, nutrition, and relaxation techniques to reduce systemic stress and inflammation.
Sowing and Reaping
You need both.
You need potent doses of mechanical tension, muscle damage, and metabolic stress in amounts and frequencies that align with your body’s ability to synthesize an adaptive response.
In All Your Getting, Get Understanding
For each program you consider following, the following questions should be asked:
- Is the exercise stimulus intense enough to provoke an adaptive response?
- Does the program involve elements that maximize mechanical tension, muscle damage, and metabolic stress?
- Does the workout frequency allow enough time for the body to synthesize the desired adaptations?
- Does the nutrition plan include everything the body needs to build new tissue and remodel old tissue?
- Is there a focus on sufficient sleep, the most anabolic portion of each day?
- Are there purposeful efforts to shift the body from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state on a daily basis?
Welcome to the 21st century and the new paradigm of health and fitness.
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