How to Continue Adaptations? [QUIZ]

Muscle confusion, by not going through the same routine weeek after week letting your body adapt to a specific set of exercises and drills. change it up or …if you will [mix it up] also constant repitition with appropriate eating habbits, changing the intensity of the workout, and and proper healing time, coupled with sheer will and determination. You can also try chaning the enviorment where you workout, instead of running at the gym run through the city, out in a national park, up a mountain …if their available to you, higher elivation is always a great way to go.

Well, sets, reps, weights and rest time are given. Aside from that there’s always ways to increase the difficulty in a program by changing exercises that work the same muscles – like swapping deads for one legged stiff legged deads. Or increasing the challenge, like going from push ups on the floor to push ups on a SB with elevated legs. Deload periods I believe to be important, as well as changing things up enough that you’re not de-motivated. These are more on the meta-level, I guess, but important nonetheless.

Variables to manipulate:

- Exercise selection
- Intensity (weight)
- # of repetitions
- # of sets
- Rest periods
- Tempo
And if you’re Jeff Anderson – Protein intake

Frequency, Intensity, and Type of exercise should be changed about every 4-6 weeks depending on athlete level (beg,int,adv). Beginners will see much more improvement early on (1st 6wks) from neural innervation/activation alone. 1st and foremost, have a goal and a plan to reach that goal.

variation is the spice of life, every 2-4 weeks change exercise programs, think outside box.

-Ensure that you mix up your exercises before you get too used to doing the same ones everytime (i.e. don’t bench press every week for 8 weeks)
-Periodization. Yeah I stole that word from you Eric, but I’ve been finding that it’s very important. A good work to rest ratio helps recovery which allows you to perform better during the workouts.
-Sounds simple but be serious in the gym. Don’t have headphones, don’t mingle excessively and get in your mental zone (mushin if you will). It’s hard to workout properly when your head isn’t in the game.
-Part of the above kinda, but keep the workouts intense. There’s no reason to lift weights for 2 hours. Instead make it a more intense 1 hour routine.
-Mix up plyometric vs static vs heavy weights. Often overlooked I think.
-Make sure to include a warm-up and pre/post stretch routines.

Cool idea Eric, I can’t wait for your next post

Ian M Reply:
December 4th, 2011 at 4:54 pm

Also I just wanted to say that all bias aside (for purchasing your ebooks and coming here) but I really hope Bocek and Patrick win. Bocek bc Nik Lentz has his coming. Also I feel Mark is an underrated LW with a beautiful groundgame, yeah i said beautiful. Claude Patrick bc I love his calculated, well rounded approach and a win over Ebersole would be a huge boost. Best of luck guys!

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Exercises/time/intensity

Variables:
1. Decrease/Increase Rest times
2. Increase weight
3. Increase reps/T.U.T
Variations on intensity stop plateaus.

I think the best thing’s to do are

1. Stick to exercises and stretches which are proven to work.
2. Keep your body guessing (easier said then done).
3. Work out hard, but stay within your limits and use proper form.
4. Eat correctly according to your daily routine. Keep it changing as your routines change.
5. Make sure to incorporate stretching into your work out schedule as it promotes blood flow to your muscles providing nutrients for healing among many other benefits.
6. Rest, Your body grows the most when it is healing. This is just as important as diet and exercise.
7.(kind of goes with #6) Every couple months, take 1-2 weeks off from training. It takes about 6 weeks for your body to lose muscle so its not going anywhere but when you hit the gym again, its going to feel like it and it will shock your body into new muscle growth.

I think it’s always mixing up routines so you don’t get bored doing the same exercises and they wont be stale so it’s always best to challenge your body and take your body to the next level so that your challenging the neural system every time you do new exercises the body isn’t used to. Always keep your muscles guessing so it doesn’t know what hit them and vary routines from time to time.

My understanding is that the most important things is variety and the intensity of the workouts, because you have to change what exercises your doing so your body isn’t experiencing the same kind of stress in the exact same way as always. My only example of this is that you’ll notice sometimes how much harder it is to do a new exercise than a frequently used exercise, because you don’t have the neural pathways. At least that’s my understanding.

Joshua Reply:
December 3rd, 2011 at 5:58 pm

sorry if my post was a little scatter brained

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Sam Reply:
December 3rd, 2011 at 7:58 pm

Not scatter brained AT ALL, man. Very important variable I forgot..

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An exercise program consists of the training variables and the exercises themselves.

From the very start of a program, there is adaptation due to the new stimulus (the addition of exercise and reps/rest…etc

As someone goes into the program, the body adapts to it.

It takes about 4-6 repeated sessions, using the same program for the body to adapt (About 4-6 weeks).

Depending on the goals of the program and of the particular phase of the program itself, different variables will be modified.

In MMA (and just about all sports), maximal strength is the most important factor to bring all other qualities up such as power and endurance.

Strength in general can be increased through increase neuromuscular efficiency and/or increased muscle size. In MMA, relative strength is extremely important, so there is an emphasis on neuromuscular efficiency unless of course one of the fighters needs is to build more muscle.

As stated before, the program changes based on the overall goal of the program and of the phases themselves.

For adaptations to occur, there must be new stimulus.

That can happen through changes of exercises, modified training variables…etc

The body adapts much faster to the training variables than the exercises themselves. That means there must be an emphasis in modifying those things, hence different phases.

A change from 4 weeks of maximal strength to a 4 week phase focused on something like power with the maintenance of maximal strength is enough of a change to cause adaptations.

Maximal strength is increased in rep ranges of 1-5 and if extra muscle is needed with increases in strength, from 6-8 reps.

Power training works best in rep ranges of 1-5 but requires less load.

Force = mass X acceleration and since increase in force is the most important thing in creating a strength & conditioning program (hence the importance of increasing maximal strength), any increase in mass and/ or acceleration will improve force production.

Conditioning is another major aspect to consider training for in MMA. A reason why Martin Rooney uses 2 days of sprinting in his programs for his fighters.

Again that means a new phase that focuses on that.

So new phases automatically means new changes of training variables.

In concern with exercises themselves, changing them every 4-6 weeks is necessary. Some exercises need to be “kept” because they are so useful such as squatting and deadlifting.

So a progression can look something like Back Squatting -> Front Squatting -> Box Squatting
or for deadlifts Trap Bar Deadlifts -> Regular Deadlifts -> Single Leg Deadlifts

This is assuming of course that they are getting ready for a fight and they need to reduce overall stress on the body as the fight gets closer (well the reduction of stress at the last few weeks).

This is also a reason for different monthly schemes such ass…

Week 1: Intro Week
Week 2: Regular Week
Week 3: Overload Week
Week 4: Either repeat of week 3 or greater overload

Week 1: High
Week 2: Medium
Week 3: Very High
Week 4: Low

Week 1: Intro
Week 2: High
Week 3: Very High

This is so that the body can adapt every couple of weeks. The two most important weeks being the “recovery” weeks and the overload week.

Adaptation cannot occur if the body doesn’t have the chance to adapt.

I’ll stop there but I think that was a good enough answer :)

Ken Reply:
December 3rd, 2011 at 7:33 pm

What he said

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Eric Reply:
December 4th, 2011 at 1:33 pm

Second that. :)

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Time, frequency, duration, “appropriateness” (specific to goal), recovery periods during exercise and/or interval design, adequate rest between sessions, 40-30-30 optimized nutrition, adequate hydration, and as Paul points out, a modern periodization scheme (which I’m guessing is a major part of your program, Eric :)

With weight training, a way to continue to make progress is to only add 1 lb to the bar every session (if you add 5 lbs to the bar in every session, you will plateau fast)

Perodization is the number one way not to plateau. Keep switching up the workouts to improve endurance, strength, and power every 4-8 weeks usual helps with athletes to adapt and constantly improve.

Wow, congratulations on being part of the camp for two UFC fighters Eric, can we expect a cage-side appearance from you?

To force the human body to adapt, my failsafe would be some variation on escalating density, same work, less time or more work in the same time.

Eric Reply:
December 4th, 2011 at 1:33 pm

Won’t be cage-side, but might be able to make it on TV, we’ll see… :)

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From my understanding, we can mostly avoid plateau by changing the repetition scheme in exercises, rather than the exercises themselves.

There is the strength gain 1-3 reps per set, weight gain 4-8 reps per set and finally the endurance of which is 12-25 reps per set.

If you are able to manipulate the training program to go through these different repetition schemes, you will continue to make gains, perhaps indefinitely.

A good way to do it is to cut 1/3rds your program into either one of these rep schemes and rotate regularly.

- Omar