The Stress Recovery Adaptation Cycle

The principle of the Stress Recovery Adaptation Cycle is actually the key to literally all the success of a good strength training program.

When we stress our body and give it time to recover it adapts to that stress becoming stronger. The adaptation is ultimately the mechanism that is there to protect us. It's our body's way of preparing for the same stress again in the future.

As we become stronger, the stress MUST continually increase as we adapt. The goal is to accumulate the stress. Once stress is applied, adequate recovery (mainly rest and food) must be provided for our body to recover and then adapt. Not enough recovery won't yield an adaptation and the time and effort spent stressing the body will be wasted. Too much rest and the adaptation will be lost and an accumulation on the adaptation won't occur. The stress has to be designed properly.

The Suntan Analogy

The bodies way of adapting to the stress of the sun is the same as strength training. Let's say you want to get a tan. So, you lie out in the sun for 30 minutes. That night, your skin is a little pink but the following day you’re back outside for 30 minutes. You stick to your schedule, spending 30 minutes sun-baking every day for a week. At the end of the week, you have turned a more pleasant shade of brown, and so decide to maintain your 30-minutes-per-day schedule for a month.

What colour is your skin at the end of the month?

Most people would say, 'really brown'. But in fact, it will be exactly the same colour it was at the end of the first week. Your skin adapts to the stress of 30 minutes of sun exposure by becoming just dark enough to prevent itself from burning. Your skin only adapts to the longest exposure, the hardest exposure, the most intense exposure. If you want it to get darker, you have to stay out longer each time, in order to give the skin slightly more stress than it had the day before. Slightly more stress that it has already adapted to. Then you have to stay out a little longer, then longer again and even longer the time after to allow for the adaptation to accumulate. Strength training is exactly the same. The failure to understand this concept of adaptation is why so few people actually understand how strength training works.

Exercise vs Training

An understanding and application of this core principle of strength training is the difference between 'Exercise' and 'Training'. Exercise is physical activity for the purpose of increasing physical activity. Exercise for exercise sake. Movement for the sake of movement. It's performed only for the purpose of the effect it produces today or right after the exercise.

To continue to get stronger, your training needs to add a little more stress each time. More intensity (weight on the bar) or more volume (more reps or sets). But not too much - so the stress can be recovered from in time to accumulate more stress. And not too little, otherwise the stress won’t be enough to cause the body to adapt.

If your strength program is not thoughtfully and purposefully designed to achieve accumulative adaptation, it's just exercise and the outcome will be inferior. ‘Exercise’ compared to ‘Training’ is a less efficient use of training time. Exercise leads no where in particular. 'Training' that considers the Stress Adaptation Recovery Cycle gets you a predictable result every time, you get stronger.