You want me to do WHAT?: The Basics of Adaptation

Adaptation is the purpose of life. From the time that you’re conceived, you’re physiology is trying to better prepare itself for the cruel, cold world. As you age, your body adapts to whatever activities you do (or don’t do. If that’s you, stop reading stupid blogs like this one, and get off your ass.), and your brain adapts to knowledge you’ve learned.

The key concept behind adaptation is Homeostasis. You body likes being cozy and comfortable, so every time you challenge, or disturb it, it adapts to make that same event less stressful the next time it occurs.

These two principles, homeostasis and adaptation, are the grounding factors for any training plan. By planning and executing cycles of training (disturbing homeostasis), and not training (allowing your body to adapt), your body gets better at handling that stimulus.

So what does it all mean? Two things: 1. REST is as important as training, and 2. You have to be SPECIFIC.

1. As a famous athlete once said (I don’t remember who), “The only time you’re getting faster is when you’re flat on your back.” All the training in the world does you no good if you don’t absorb it, by giving your body time to adapt.

2. What does your body adapt to? VERY specific stresses. If you do a lot of pullups, do you get better at pushups? Maybe a little, but not really. The Principle of Specificity states that you must train what you want to improve.  

An important thought about specificity: It does not only cover mode (WHAT you do for training, i.e. pushups vs pullups), but also technique (wide pushups vs. narrow pushups, slow temp running vs. fast tempo running), and intensity (slow running vs. fast running.

SO, if you want to run fast, you need to spend a lot of time running close to race pace, with close to race technique. If you want to ski fast, you need to spend a lot of time skiing close to race pace with race technique.

Disturb and adapt my friends, disturb and adapt.