Strength Training and Rehab by Kolbi

For many people going to the gym we get our set of exercises and continue to train similarly for years. In this article I’d like to highlight the importance of changing your exercises over time to continue to adapt and improve. When we do resistance training our body adapts and learns how to recruit muscles more efficiently and with better coordination. In the first few weeks of a new exercise, neural adaptation is the predominant mechanism by which we increase our force output or ‘strength’. Once that has been established, we then get into real strength training which is achieved by true strength gains rather than coordination improvements. It is important in this phase to consider the goals of your exercise, for example whether you would like to train endurance, strength, power, etc. as this will guide your repetitions, weight, frequency, and rest periods between sets of exercise. The guidelines of these parameters are outside the scope of this blog post but are important aspects to learn about if you are starting a resistance training program.

If we take a step back quickly and think about our daily tasks, although many might be similar day to day, there are often new movements, loads, speeds, etc of activities we do in our daily life. A common example of this is moving house. Although we may not do this often, we would hope that our fitness and training would prepare us for the ability to do these things without injury. If we are constantly training the same controlled exercise at the gym, the applicability of this to real life is quite limited. However, if we change our exercises in the gym to alter some parameters, we can optimize that coordination and efficiency of our movements to better prepare us for tasks that we may not do all the time outside of the gym. For example, if I change the variation of squats I do over the year, I am more likely to be able to cope with the awkward lifting sometimes required when moving house. My exposure to squats with different angles, muscles, speeds, and weights, would mean I have a larger repertoire of movement patterns to draw from to achieve the lifting I need to do. The comparison would be to a training program that always includes the same squats with the same weights over years. This program has not exposed me to variation, and I will be limited in my coordination and strength in any tasks that are outside of the parameters I trained in at the gym. By altering my training over time in the former example, I have more available motor patterns and better strength, both of which would reduce my risk of injury when approaching novel tasks such as moving house.

Further, as we get stronger and bigger muscles, exercises require less muscle recruitment to achieve the same task. Although we would continue to maintain our ability to lift or push that weight, our stimulus to recruit more muscles to improve power and strength for heavier loads diminishes over time. As you get stronger, it is important to progress your exercises to an intensity that sufficiently challenges your neuromuscular system over time. This concept is particularly important as we age and go through changes in our muscles leading to decreased power and strength over time. For women, it is particularly important to keep weights heavy after menopause as this period causes a cascade of changes in our muscles leading to decreased power and strength at an increased rate compared to pre- and peri-menopause.

Along with muscular changes, exercise can help us maintain bone density and keep us resilient against bone fractures and injuries. By introducing a variety of muscle pulls in different angles, and putting heavy weight on bone, we increase the density and slow the progression of bone density reduction and risk of osteoporosis.

Thanks, 

Kolbi