40fit Radio

In the first ten episodes -- the "Foundations" series - we discussed the Stress Recovery Adaptation cycle, a simple yet powerful model that describes how organisms, including ourselves, adapt to stressors in their environment. It also helps us understand how we go about creating the change we want in our bodies. There must be a stress, that stress must be specific to the desired adaptation (i.e. you have to pick up heavy weights to get stronger), and recovery must be sufficient or else the organism gets injured or dies. The SRA cycle is the heart of any systematic, intelligent approach to programming.   While the model is simple, real life, unfortunately, is not. Despite our best intentions, the Stress and Recovery factors don't always balance, and when one or the other gets out of whack, overtraining can occur. The word "overtraining" has been a hot topic in training circles for a while now, and it's definition is still debated. Is overtraining really over-"training" (too much stress) or is merely "under-rec