As a Fitness Trainer you should have a solid understanding of the 7 Laws of Training. If you, or your trainer, do not know or understand each of these principles then you need to study them or fire your trainer.
These 7 Laws include: The Principle of Individual Differences, The Principle of Overcompensation, The Overload Principle, The Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands (SAID), The General Adaptation Principle (GAS), The Use/Disuse Principal, and the Specificity principle.
In this article I am going to discuss the Overload Principle. An easy way to understand this law is to think of the last time you may have had a wound of some sort. When that wound healed you probably noticed that the new skin seemed to ‘pile’ up and cause an odd sort of mound over the area that was wounded. Another example may be calluses that build up after a long day of yard work.
Any time the body is injured it will ‘overcompensate’ and create more skin over the injured area than is needed. Your body will always do more than is needed to get you as back to normal as quickly as it can. This holds true when it comes to exercise recovery or building muscle.
The graph below shows how the Overcompensation Principle works.
The straight line in the middle is your body in Homeostasis. It is in balance. The stimulus is the resistance or weight that you are using. When you are training and you add resistance (weights) your body fatigues and muscle breaks down. After a hard workout your body tries to get back to homeostasis or normal.
During this process your body ‘Overcompensates’ for the amount of resistance used and will react by building more muscle to handle the stress (stimulus) that is placed on it so that it can handle the next bout. If that stress is an amount that the body is used to then it will return to where it was prior to the exercise. If the stress is more or heavier than what the body is used to it will cause your homeostasis to change. This is why it also so important to understand the Overload Principle as well. There must be an overload placed on the body above what it can normally handle. This will cause your muscles to adapt to the heavier weight in order to reach its new normal.
The 7 Laws of Fitness are considered the “Granddaddy” Laws and should be understood by all Fitness Trainers when creating a training program for their clients. If you are on your own and want to be a step ahead of those around you then read and understand these principles and apply them to your training. If you hired a Fitness Trainer of a Specialist in Strength and Conditioning ask them about these principles. If they do not know them then it’s time to find another Trainer.
If you are serious about changing the way you look and want to become healthier then you need to sing-up TODAY for my Fitness Training program. Let me set you up with a program that is proven through science!
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