Adaptation

Your body is a wonderful thing, stress it with exercise over a period of weeks and adaptation occurs. Your body will adapt to the exercise induced stress and improve how it responds. Exercise training is an adaptive process. The body will adapt to the stress of exercise with increased fitness, if the stress is above a minimum threshold intensity. The purpose of physical training is to stress systematically the body so it improves its capacity to exercise. Physical training is only beneficial if the body is overloaded consistently which forces the body to make the necessary changes to reduce the stress. A training program properly designed will slowly over time make the body adapt, adapt again and again until the trainee meets the desired level of fitness. Conversely, if the training stops for some reason, illness, injury or lack of motivation the body reverses and returns to the original state. The decline can occur much more quickly, as in a matter of 6 weeks or so. The road to fitness is a long slow climb with the idea to avoid injury and over training and once reached the body requires continual training to maintain the new fitness level. That is why being a weekend warrior is not such a good idea as injury and sore muscles impair motivation and ability. Fitness has to be a lifestyle choice. Good health and quality of life are the goals and they cannot be undertaken lightly. The journey to fitness is a life long one that takes commitment. Stray off the path and the body returns to where it began. Challenge yourself and your body will adapt no matter the current state of fitness. But, your mind has to adapt to the new model of yourself along with the adaptations of your body. I know you have heard it is good to reduce the stress in your life but in this instance properly programmed physical stress is just what the doctor ordered. If you need help developing that training program I can help [email protected]