When exercising, you will encounter various levels of stress. These are determined by experience, frequency, duration, intensity, and other variables. The three stages of stress are Alarm, Adaptation, and Plateau.
1. Alarm, or Shock Stage. This is when you are new to exercise, are coming back from a hiatus, or have changed up your program. You may encounter muscle soreness, or as I affectionately call it, “quality soreness” which my personal training clients and I jokingly recall upon each follow up session. This is the period where you can be certain that you are embarking on a new phase of results. It may last two weeks to a month.
2. Adaptation, or Progress Stage. Within two to three weeks of a new fitness program, you start to notice positive changes. Your clothing feels different to your body, you start to see certain muscles- maybe the separation between your triceps and deltoids (back of the arm and outer shoulder). Your muscles feel firmer. Your shirts, blouses, and pants are now looser around the midsection and hips. You now feel comfortable and proud to tuck in your shirt!
3. Plateau, or Stagnation Stage. It happens too commonly to too many of us. We get comfortable in the same old routine. People say “I’m just looking for a good routine,” but routine is not what you want for success in fitness. Maybe you always hit the circuit, the easy to use no mess no fuss machines. Too many fitness club members stick to this workout for years, several times a week, and wonder why they no longer see results.You don’t want haphazard workouts without direction, but you do want exercises you can come back to periodically to gauge progress.
Which stage are you in? Ideally we want to always be in the progress stage. There are many beneficial techniques that may be new to you to help get you started or to help get you back into the progress stage if you have plateaued. Learning fundamental exercises and how to perform them correctly should be the basis of any fitness program. After several weeks, the body has adapted and is ready for new exercises and more workload, or volume. Once you have a solid foundation or have become accustomed to a “routine”, it is time to introduce variables and intensity techniques to further challenge the body. The direction of your fitness should then be steadily marching higher.
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