Adaptation to Athleticism
Are you an athlete or do you just do athletic things? Does your body function as an athlete or are you in the process of becoming an athlete? Did you play sports in high school or college and then find yourself trapped in a cubicle with little to no physical movement? If so, are you still an athlete? Is being an athlete something you have to practice or are athletes just born that way?
The term “athlete” is thrown around the fitness world very frequently. I am guilty of this because the term “athlete” invokes the feelings of being on a team, and I dig that. But, as a strength coach, I see people from all walks of life, doing athletic things – sometimes athletically, sometimes not. And this gets my brain spinning. How and when do we upgrade a conversation from beginner, to intermediate, to athlete, to elite athlete? For each of these stages, or levels, we have to coach and converse using different languages, exercises, programs, and cues. I cannot coach NFL football players the same way I coach the 9-5 weekend warrior, much less someone that has never been in a weight room. On the surface, this is very obvious, but it does not stop there. Is there a scientific answer to the process of becoming an athlete? As with everything, the more you research, the more the story leads back to our physiology, biology, and the tissues that make up our body.
The body is made up of tissues. There are muscle tissues, the big ones you flex in the mirror (biceps, hamstring, etc), connective tissues that connect muscle tissue to joints (tendons and ligaments), and bone tissue (femur, fibia, tibia, etc). There are more, but for the purpose of this conversation, we will focus on the relationship of these three. These tissues work in unison to adapt to the environment you create for your body. If you choose to be strong, you lift weights, introduce barbells, and other heavy stuff into your environment. In order to adapt and grow, the tissues must regenerate, getting rid of the old, weak cells and molecules by replacing them with newer, stronger cells and molecules. In order to adapt to these new heavy things, you get stronger, and suddenly you are on Instagram with your shirt off.
These tissues tell the story of becoming an athlete. As you begin to lift heavy things, your muscles instantly grow. They grow because the cells and molecules in your muscles are forced to adapt. It takes around 90 days for the molecules in your muscle tissue to regenerate. More importantly, it takes around 90 days for all of the weak molecules in your muscle tissue to be replaced. That is mind boggling. So yes, you can work out for two months, gain a little strength, but you have not gotten rid of the weakness until around the three month mark. If the weights are the environment for muscle tissue, muscle tissue is the environment for your connective tissue. It takes your connective tissues just over 200 days to fully regenerate. You have to work out for nearly seven months before the connective tissue in your body has fully adapted to all of this lifting you have been doing. Bone tissue takes around two years to regenerate and see the results of your hard work. So, for a complete adaptation from muscle tissue to increased structural integrity, we are looking at two years – which is a really long time for everyone in the world that wants the magic pill to success.
As a coach, this raises some eyebrows. We know everyone wants to be strong. We know you want to squat with all the cool kids. And, in the first 3 months you start seeing all these new muscles, weights going up, and you are stronger than ever. Except, the tissues that hold all of these really strong muscles have not fully adapted to the training. The connective tissues holding all of the muscles together are still operating at the capacity of your old self. This does not even take into account the bones that are structurally in their infancy of adapting to the stimulus you apply to it daily. We often see athletes in this zone where their muscles overpower their tendons and ligament, they start moving too fast, lifting too heavy, and injuries are potentially right around the corner. So what is lesson? SLOW DOWN, DO LESS, and COMMIT because no matter how hard you push, you cannot speed up this process, only slow it down by overtraining or injury.
Athletes spend a great deal of time training to be good at their sport. If you surf a lot, your bones and tissues adapt to the demands of the water. If you are a strength athlete, your tissues adapt to the demands of barbells and back squats. From the very first time you step into the weight room and decide, “this is my thing,” it is a two year process to rid your body of the weak and replace your old self with a strong, athletic body. Yes, you can get stronger and be healthier in less than two years, but for the long lasting, lifestyle changes most people are looking for; it is a two year journey to get to the start line. Once you have changed the tissues in your body, now we can really start training and coaching you as an athlete. The conversation of our tissues explains why you have that beginners luck and get so strong so fast. It explains why most injuries happen in that 4-7 month range. The muscles are too strong for the connective tissues. It explains why people suddenly hit plateaus around 18ish months of training. It explains why, once you have been doing this for a long time, you can stay relatively strong and healthy forever. Commit to the process of becoming an athlete. Two years, for the rest of your life.
Resources:
http://bjjcaveman.com/2014/07/20/gymnastic-bodies-coach-christopher-sommer/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2426803/
http://robbwolf.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Paleo-Solution-241.pdf
