Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands

The SAID (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands) principle states”…if a person is put under physical stress of varying intensities and duration, the person attempts to overcome the stress by adapting specifically to the imposed demands”

To put the statement above into plain English, the SAID principle says that the human body changes in order to make things easier. Your body will try to adapt in such a way that the activities to which it has been regularly exposed are no longer as strenuous because the body has become more efficient at them. Cool, don’t we work out because we’re trying to change our body? It seems like I would want my body to adapt, right? Answer: it depends.

Do you ever ask yourself what adaptations your current training is going to elicit? What I mean is, what kind of physical stresses are you putting on yourself, and what response is that going to create? If you’ve never asked yourself that question, it’s probably time you do. Let me give you an example of the type of client that I see about twice a month. “Marsha” has been working out for 4 months and lost about 20 pounds- hurray Marsha! Problem is, Marsha lost that 20 pounds in the first 6 weeks, and the scale been playing mind games with her ever since. She’ll lose 2 pounds, and then gain 3. Lose those 3 pounds plus 2 more, and then gain all 5 back. Now she’s a pound heavier than she was when this whole thing started, and she’s blaming that one slice of cheesecake that she ate last weekend for the gain. Marsha hates life and says things like, “I guess nothing will work for me. At some point, I have to be able to eat like a normal person! I’m just going to be fat no matter what.” Now, Marsha quits giving two craps about watching what she eats or going to the gym. She thinks, “Who cares. I don’t work that hard to look ‘thinner’ and not see the scale move for months. I want to be a rockin’ hottie. F this, I am done.”

That sucks. It sucks, it sucks, it sucks, and it sucks!!!!!It is a horrible feeling. It is discouraging, maddening, and on top of it all people have the audacity to think you gave up. You feel like you gave up. “Other people” don’t have this problem. You saw that one girl in the sports bra on the elliptical for an hour every day at the same time you were there, and you were working just as hard. She’s hot, you’re not. Stupid skinny little bitch… Now, you're crying and eating your third bag of Reece’s Pieces while staring at your tummy in the mirror thinking that if you're going to be fat, at least you're going to be full! Hell, for the last 3 months you’ve been fat and STARVING, so why not eat your ass off? You look the same either way, right?

Now, let’s look into Marsha’s story a little harder. I want to dig into what she was doing, and see if she was placing demands on her body that were actually telling her body to store fat instead of get rid of it. Marsha, who has never really paid attention to what she was eating in the past, started a new diet that had her eating 1000 calories per day. Mostly, Marsha waited until she was so hungry she was about to punch a kitten at which time she consumed two rice cakes and a Fresca. She was on the elliptical 6 days a week for an hour. This should make her lose weight. After all, losing weight is as easy as moving more and eating less, and Marsha is definitely doing that. For the first 6 weeks, it did make her lose weight, but then something happened. At some point, her body adapted to those demands. By being totally underfed and doing long steady state cardio for 6 weeks, Marsha taught her body to do more work with fewer calories. In other words, she became fuel (calorie) efficient.

Being fuel efficient is a good thing, right? It saves resources. If we all drove hybrid cars, the world’s oil would take forever before it burned up. The problem is, the “resources” that we’re talking about here are calories and calories only come from 3 places: food, your muscles, and body fat. In other words, that extra fluff around your midsection and the muscles on your body are both calorie reserves, and after 6 weeks of steady state cardio and consuming very nearly no calories, your metabolism will adapt to save calories at all costs. Muscles are calorically expensive for your body to keep and use, so you can bet that they’re gone as soon as your body can get rid of them. Now, your resting metabolic rate will go down, your lean mass (muscle) will be used as energy because lord knows you don’t need all that extra muscle to endlessly plug along on the elliptical, and your body fat stores will find a comfortable level at about 25 pounds more than you want.

Your metabolism is working against you, and it is all your fault! Please, do not hear this as another jerk telling you you're not trying. I know you're trying, what I am saying is that if the approach you're using now isn’t working, how much longer are you going to spin your wheels before you seek out a new one? When are you going to stop comparing yourself to the skinny girl at the gym who God blessed with a lightning fast metabolism as if somehow that’s normal? A lightning fast metabolism given from birth is in no way normal; and besides, even if it were, you don’t have one so there’s no point in worrying about it. All you should be worrying about is what you can do to change it. People all over lose weight and bust plateaus every stinking day. People, the author of this article included, go from fat-body to in great shape. For those of you who are unhappy with your weight, or hit a massive wall, it is time to rethink your time in the gym and your eating habits. Instead of exclusively seeking out an immediate and short-sighted calorie burn, it is important to do the work that will give you sustained results and boost your metabolism for the long haul. Now, there are tons of ways to boost your metabolism and the sooner in your health and fitness journey you start down the right path, the less you will have to “undo” in the long run. Here are a few practical tidbits:

1.      Interval training

Interval training is when you increase the intensity of your cardio training for specific intervals of time. It has a positive impact on your calorie burn not just while you're doing the exercise, but also for hours after you’re done. Also, because you’re working closer to your “max”, your heart and lungs are going to start working better. That means you’ll be able to exercise longer or, most importantly, with more intensity.  Interval training does not require any equipment that you don’t already have. You could walk/jog or use a piece of cardio like the elliptical or stairmill.

2.      Increase frequency of meals

Eating more often is one of the best ways to get your metabolism going, but it is also the hardest. The trick here in not to increase your caloric intake, but to try to eat the same amount spread throughout the day. It works because the more often you feed your body, the less your body will try to save calories for the future. You're telling your body, “Go ahead and burn up that fuel; you’ll be getting more in a couple short hours” as opposed to, “You’d better save these calories because I’m not feeding you again for 6 more hours.” About 6 times a day is ideal, but if you can spread your calories out over just one additional meal, it will have an impact. Also, shakes and bars can be a great way to spread out your calories without having to cook all the time. Whatever works for you is fine; just get in calories more frequently.

3.      Stimulants

The list of available products with stimulants in them is as long as my arm, so I won’t go through them all. There is more than one good fat burner on the market, and about a million bad ones. Simple caffeine pills will help if you don’t get too much in your other beverages as it is. VPX Meltdown has gotten a few of my clients sweating buckets, so that is probably worth a try. Remember though, stimulants are a short term solution to a long term problem, and more than a couple of my clients have rebounded and gained back some weight after finishing their supps. Used correctly, stimulants can be great way to jump start the process, but don’t try to count on them forever. After 4-8 weeks, stop using them altogether so you don’t become reliant. If you have to have a product to function normally, it is no longer providing any sort of boost and therefore it is useless.

4.      Sleep

When you have not rested your body and mind enough, there is no way that you're going to have the energy to give it your all at the gym. Maybe, it feels like you are, but in reality, a body that is under-rested just WILL NOT perform to its full capacity. Think of how different you feel after a good night’s sleep compared to a bad one. I’m talking to you, America- when you don’t sleep well, you're cranky and unproductive so get some rest.

5.       Resistance

I saved this one for last because it is the single most important stimulus your body can receive to help you gain or preserve muscle. If your muscles aren’t getting direct resistance training frequently, they need to be. Resistance training comes in many forms, but the vast majority of the world should start in stabilization/core training. That’s the type of training where you use increased instability to progress the difficulty of the exercise as opposed to pure weight. Stabilization/core training teaches your muscles to work better because all that shaking around “wakes up” muscle fibers that are not being used. Imagine if you had a V8 engine, but only 4 of the cylinders had electricity going to the spark plug. That’s what is going on inside muscles that haven’t been used in a while. Your brain “shut them down” because they weren’t being used. Now, “fire them up” and all of the sudden, your metabolism is starting to get moving again. Making an exercise more stabilization focused isn’t that hard once you get the hang of it. Start by using more dumbbells instead of machines and barbells, and incorporating instability tools like the physioball into your routine. Plus, if you do all of your exercises in a circuit, you’ll get some great cardio out of it too which can make your time in the gym more efficient. 

If you’re banging your head against the wall trying to shed some extra weight, just know that you're not alone. Remember that your body will always be trying to adapt to whatever stimulus it is receiving, so make sure that you are sending your body the right signals. The list above is by no means the end all be all of weight loss, but I hope it provides a good place for you to get started.

The information and discussions on this webstie/blog are intended for general information only.  You should not rely on any of the statements made without consulting a medical professional of your choosing.