Forced Adaptation: Making your Workouts Work!

Over at my Big Muscle Blog, I touched briefly on workout routines becoming "routine." Blame it on our highly adaptive nervous system. Our nervous system is at the front lines when we encounter the world in which we live. When I put a weight in a client's hand and show him/her a new exercise, it's their nervous system that's evaluating that new exercise, not so much their muscles. In fact, unless your nervous system gets on board with that new exercise, there probably won't be any muscle adaptation, let alone growth: Adaptation first, next comes growth!

There's a principle called forced adaptation whereas a muscle is given a new stress (a change in weight, a change in the number of reps, or a new movement) and the result is that muscle adapting to the change (growing). This translates into mixing things up in the gym. If you've been doing the same workout for several months, it's efficacy is probably on the wane by now. There's a simple solution: Mix it up or hire a trainer who will show you new movements that will keep your training sessions moving forward.