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Like many fitness nerds I have an instagram folder full of cool exercises that I intend to try out some day. Some of them are aspirational, some of them are practical, and the supply is nearly endless. I could do a different workout every day I hit the gym and never run out of new ideas.
However this over-saturation of workout ideas, while entertaining, is not particularly helpful. When we think about how bodies actually adapt to training in order to increase any particular variable—flexibility, mobility, strength, endurance—adding novel stimulus on the regular is going to create more confusion than progress.
Training Requires Consistency and Small Changes to Our Program
Whenever we want to manipulate a physical trait or ability it is helpful to understand what actually is happening in our bodies to create that change. Most changes do not happen quickly, they are the result of little shifts to our physical structures (mostly muscles and fascia), our nervous system, and our endocrine system (hormones) that make incremental changes over time.
Because these changes are slow and cumulative, it makes sense that constantly throwing new stimulus at your system is going to slow your progress. It would be like sending a kid to school and working on a completely different subject every day. By the time you circle back around to something familiar the kid has already forgotten what was covered last time.
This is our body trying to figure out what adaptation you want when you do a different workout every time you train!
This means that changes to our training programs need to happen on a longer cycle. The science of athletic periodization encourages consistent training with changes made slowly over time, and re-assessments every month or two. You want a training plan that gives your body enough of the same stimulation that it has time to actually make the changes that you’re asking for.
This also avoids big fluctuations in how much stimulation you are giving your body. We want to give it enough so that it is inspired to make adaptations, but not so much that we actually damage ourselves or get so exhausted that we have to take a long break. This concept of progressive overload is key to creating sustainable change in the way we perform.
Exercise Selection Should Focus on Your Exact Goals
Fitness and mobility build according to the SAID Principle: Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. This means that the body learns to perform only and exactly as you use it.
Example:
If you are training splits every single day by sitting in splits, it is likely that you will find your splits improve over time. However this will not necessarily translate into a better high kick or even a standing split. Sitting in splits will increase the passive flexibility of your hip flexors and hamstrings, but it will not increase your active mobility to be able to lift or hold your leg up in the air with grace and balance.
That isn’t to say that a high kick training program couldn’t incorporate a split or two, but that just working on passive flexibility will not be sufficient to create the change you want.
So here are some questions to ask yourself when you are considering adding a new, very cool-looking exercise to your regimen:
Does this exercise move my body and build towards my current training goals?
Do I already have other exercises that do something similar and is this one actually better than what I’m already doing?
Can I do this exercise with good form and at the proper level of challenge for my current training state? Or am I going to hurt myself?
Can I be consistent with this exercise so that I can actually get the benefit from doing it (because you can’t get benefit by doing it once)?
Does this exercise just look cool but not really deliver anything new or useful to my training?
I am just as tempted as the next body nerd by all of the creative, weird workouts on social media, but just because something looks fun and sexy doesn’t mean it’s actually good for you!
Wee-woo-wee-woo here come the fun police!
This doesn’t mean that you can’t make space for fun an experimentation here and there, but that you will get better adaptations if the meat and bones of your training sessions are strategic and consistent.
Knee Surgery Update and Body Nerd Alert
If you made it this far, here is my personal update. I’m two months out of knee surgery and I’m starting to rebuild my strength and mobility, a little at a time. I can bend my knee passively to about 115 degrees and I am able to start single leg balance drills and ¾ squats. Unfortunately I’m going to be in a big honking brace until September/October for most of my daily life, which means that I’m much more sedentary than I’d like.
To fill my time I am studying to become a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. This is an accreditation from the National Strength and Conditioning Association that is designed for people who want to be athletic trainers for professional athletes. I am interested in taking the vast amount of research and knowledge that has been developed for athletes and figuring out ways to apply it to physical artists like dancers, circus performers, and musicians.
This means that I have a whole lot of great science to share with you all as I figure out where there are strong parallels between athletes and physical artists, and where we differ.
More to come! And as always if you have any thoughts or questions, please just reply to this email or drop a comment on the webiste.
Happy Bendings!
Kristina
