Adapt or Fail
June 18th 2007 11:24
Fitness is about a process of adaptation. The only way adaptation can occur is through organized repetition. Haphazard repetition will not work nor will varied activities in no particular pattern. What makes you fitter is the use of your brain to create a program of repeated activity based on knowledge of how the body adapts to stresses placed on it.
I could never estimate how many times someone who is working a fitness program has said to me that they did not workout on a given day according to their agreed schedule,because they were doing yard work or something such.To this admission they almost always add that yard work or swimming or walking the park etc is exercise. And so it is. I have never said this to anyone,but I would like to respond to these folks with a tirade about how they are free to do whatever they want and that they are making an excuse for not following the program, when in fact they did not follow it because they did not want to follow it.
The reality of adaptation is that you must force your body to undertake the same activity over a period of weeks for it to become convinced that this is the pattern of the future and it must therefore get itself adapted to it. It is also true that the body is so task specific that you really cannot substitute one activity for another and expect anything in the way of improved fitness. If for instance you were to become a machine on the exercise bike at the gym and suddenly got a road bike and launched onto the streets, you would within meters discover that the two activities which seem do similar are actually so different that they lend very little to one another.
Cross adaptation is so negligible that it is depressing. My experience in martial arts is that my weight room strength is handy,but when I am locked in hand to hand combat I always tell myself that I am not in shape for it and need to get in shape for it. Both weight training and wrestling are intense and short. They ought in a perfect world to be so cross adaptive that one could make one a substitute for the other. Not true.Take the average bodybuilder and put him at the back of push lawn mower for a few hours and he will want a nap. Yet, hundreds of people make living behind a push mower. You will become adapted to whatever you do on a regular basis.
My point for your fitness is that you must decide what you want to be in fitness and pursue it. If you want to have better proportions, you have to work at enlarging some body parts with such regularity that your body gets the message. If you want the benefits of larger lungs and stronger heart, you have to invest in intense cardio(I said intense, not endurance.) Whatever you want, you have to set the pattern and keep at it, jettisoning everything that will detract. That involves knowledge,planning, and good old discipline. Telling yourself that you don't need to lift weights today,because you gave the dog an extra long walk is immature. Face it. Your servant, as always.
I could never estimate how many times someone who is working a fitness program has said to me that they did not workout on a given day according to their agreed schedule,because they were doing yard work or something such.To this admission they almost always add that yard work or swimming or walking the park etc is exercise. And so it is. I have never said this to anyone,but I would like to respond to these folks with a tirade about how they are free to do whatever they want and that they are making an excuse for not following the program, when in fact they did not follow it because they did not want to follow it.
The reality of adaptation is that you must force your body to undertake the same activity over a period of weeks for it to become convinced that this is the pattern of the future and it must therefore get itself adapted to it. It is also true that the body is so task specific that you really cannot substitute one activity for another and expect anything in the way of improved fitness. If for instance you were to become a machine on the exercise bike at the gym and suddenly got a road bike and launched onto the streets, you would within meters discover that the two activities which seem do similar are actually so different that they lend very little to one another.
Cross adaptation is so negligible that it is depressing. My experience in martial arts is that my weight room strength is handy,but when I am locked in hand to hand combat I always tell myself that I am not in shape for it and need to get in shape for it. Both weight training and wrestling are intense and short. They ought in a perfect world to be so cross adaptive that one could make one a substitute for the other. Not true.Take the average bodybuilder and put him at the back of push lawn mower for a few hours and he will want a nap. Yet, hundreds of people make living behind a push mower. You will become adapted to whatever you do on a regular basis.
My point for your fitness is that you must decide what you want to be in fitness and pursue it. If you want to have better proportions, you have to work at enlarging some body parts with such regularity that your body gets the message. If you want the benefits of larger lungs and stronger heart, you have to invest in intense cardio(I said intense, not endurance.) Whatever you want, you have to set the pattern and keep at it, jettisoning everything that will detract. That involves knowledge,planning, and good old discipline. Telling yourself that you don't need to lift weights today,because you gave the dog an extra long walk is immature. Face it. Your servant, as always.
| 28 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
