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Variation & Stagnation

By Robert Morrison

Are you stuck in an exercise rut? Is lack of variation causing your progress to halt? Well, you could be suffering from a common problem, a problem I see every day. It affects thousands, possibly millions!

..Stagnation in progress due to lack of Variation. Many clients come to me because they cannot push past the current limitations in their exercise routine.

My answer is always, you are overadapted!

What is overadaptation I hear you say.

To look at this we have to go back to the basics of exercise, which is that exercise is a stressor and is used to stimulate change in our bodies. These changes result in either improvement, maintenance, or slowing the regression of functional ability.

Now this is all very good if the body gets a strong enough stimulus to change. But in reality, the human body strives to be as efficient as possible in every task. This involves conserving as much energy as possible, while quite often shifting tension between muscles to "spread the workload". So lets say your typical workout consists of an intense 30 minute bout on the cross trainer followed by lunges,rowing and bench pressing. You perform it in the same fashion, week in-week out. You have fallen into the trap of complacency. You have also probably committed the gamblers fallacy, believing that if you keep going, keep pushing..then eventually "something" must happen. WRONG! why would your body want to change? It can quite happily complete the workout on a regular basis. Unless your a beginner, its also unlikely that your loads/levels have increased.

Going back to the issue of energy conservation. This is an innate survival method that you body uses. Whenever a task is performed, the nervous system adapts in order to make that task easier. Hence, why we can learn to drive, ride a bike etc. The same is true of exercise. In order to exercise, we have to perform certain tasks. Your nervous system adapts to these tasks by changing the way the muscles interact.(or in aerobic exercise this takes place along with efficiency of oxygen usage and mitochondrial proliferation) This makes the task easier. When you repeat it, you body says great!, this is no problem! Therefore you either increase load, or stagnate. Stagnation is the common result. This is because their is only so much muscle we can control at any one time.(or so much oxygen we can utilise). Your body reaches a happy medium and sees no reason to grow stronger, leaner or faster! This is why monotonous loading(increasing load gradually over time) always results in failure to progress. You will hit a wall, guaranteed! Not a single trainee has reached his/her potential by performing the same exercises over and over indefinitely.

The alternative? Variety. Continuous variety. For people who have trained for more than 6months to a year, no 2 workouts should be the same. Exercise choices, order of exercises and application (speed, cadence, load) should all be varied. That way, when you do come back to perform you old routine, you will find you have pushed passed the barriers! and reached a new level!

For some new tricks on how to vary routines, and how to implement cyclical methods for unreal progress, contact me for information!

About the Author:

Robert Morrison is a Certified Fitness Clinician with the IART. He operates RM Health & Fitness in Cork, Ireland. He has been published in Synergy 2006 and is due to be published in Synergy 2007. He can be contacted via his website www.rmhaf.ie