The Main Purpose of Working Out (What Many Do Not Understand)
February 9, 2019 // Fitness
While we know exercise is good for us, there is one guiding principle that makes exercise an effective choice for improving health: Adaptation.
When we exercise, we are placing our bodies under physical stress at different levels of intensities. As we continue to exercise, whether within the bout itself or over the course of time, our bodies are adjusting any necessary internal components to better handle the stressors. Simply put, our bodies learn to adapt to the environment it’s placed within (known as homeostasis).
Now here’s where the phenomenon gets lost on many exercisers: your workout should constantly be evolving. As your body is adapting to the workout, your physical abilities will increase. This means that the same workout done repetitively will yield a lesser effect on the body, since the body has adapting itself to handle the stressors with more efficiency and less effort.
This is where the dreaded plateau is likely to occur. To avoid this halt in progress, you must incorporate a new demand to yield new adaptation. This means that your next workout should have some new level of difficulty.
Maybe you increase the volume (# of sets/reps).
Maybe you increase the resistance (weight) on a particular compound movement.
Maybe you decrease the rest time between sets.
Maybe you incorporate a more challenging exercise.
Whatever it may be, the idea is to make micro-progressions between every workout. No two workouts should be the same.