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Adaptation and Plateaus
The body has a magical way of adapting to its surroundings and the stresses deemed upon it on a daily
basis. Adaptation is a good thing, but when it comes to making continued progress and physical gains it
can become commonplace.
If you do a brand new workout, you can expect and enjoy positive changes in strength, balance and
fitness for an extended period of time. But sooner or later, your body will adapt to the new battery of
stressors you put it through and you will no longer make progress. In fitness circles, this is referred to as a
plateau.
If you do the exact same workout for months and even years in a row, you will reach a certain point of
fitness and that’s it. And yes, there are people who have followed the exact same workout for years and
years and years. If it makes you happy, then go for it. But just be aware, you can become very bored with
this protocol and you will only make a certain amount of progress.
It makes a lot more sense to change your workouts completely every four to six weeks. This will give you
enough time to make continued gains in size, strength and lung capacity, and not get burnt out.
The easiest way to change a workout is just simply do different exercises. You can still work the same
muscle groups though. For example, if you do barbell bench presses for your chest for four weeks,
change it to dumbbell incline presses for your next cycle.
Speaking of cycles, this is a good segue to talk about periodization. This training protocol is often
deployed by serious athletes or people training for a specific event like a bodybuilding competition. It is
based off of periods of time known as macrocycles, mesocycles and microcycles. Each one has a desired
goal in mind.
A macrocycle is the largest span of time and can be 9 to 12 months down the road. Think in terms of
your wellness vision in this case.
A macrocycle is a smaller block of time, usually in the neighborhood of three or four months and a
microcycle is a one or two week increment.
Using these cycles can keep your workouts interesting and purposeful, and give you solid goals to
aim for. Not to mention, they can be strategically placed to avoid adaptation.
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