Fun and Fitness: Three stages of workout stress

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Hitting the gym too hard can lead to exhaustion.

General adaptation syndrome is a nice way of describing how your body responds to the stress of a training exercise. As you stress your body, it goes through three different stages: the alarm stage, the resistance stage and the exhaustion stage.

When a new stress is placed on your body, such as that from starting a training regimen for the first time, your body will naturally go through an alarm stage. You'll experience high levels of soreness accompanied by decreased levels of performance. If you're thinking to yourself, "I know what he is talking about — it's that brand-new pain that hurts like a bitch a day or two after I work out," then you're absolutely right. It is unfortunately also one of the biggest reasons why newcomers completely abandon training in the early going that we see far too often.

However, for those of you who stick to it and fight through the initial soreness, congratulations, you are now entering the resistance stage! This is where your body adapts neuromuscularly and biochemically to the stress it has been put under and becomes better prepared to deal with that particular stress. If another lightbulb went off in your head again and you're thinking, "Is he talking about when my body isn't nearly as sore two weeks after starting my training program?" then you're right again. I find this to be one of the most neglected bits that trainers fail to educate their clients about. They don't take the time to explain this resistance phase and newcomers develop these concerns that the initial soreness from hell will be a continuous plague over their bodies. I don't think anyone would want to train hard if that were the case. None of us would be able to get out of our beds without agonizing pain for as long as we hit the gym! So if you only take one thing away from this article, make sure it's this piece of underrated but very important information about the body's resistance capability.

Lastly, if you expose yourself to TOO much stress for TOO long a period, your body will enter the exhaustion stage. Your adaptations that you worked so hard for will begin to plateau and actually reverse. This can result from either a lack of training variety or too much training stress. If you're thinking about those idiots that spend over two hours a day, six to seven days a week hitting the weights like it's their job, then you now have a mental picture of what NOT to do.

Like anything else in life, we typically go through stages or steps in order to achieve a certain goal. Physical activity, exercise and training are no exceptions to the rule. So remember, you will be ALARMED, but be consistent and your body will RESIST. And whatever you do, do not over-train or you will EXHAUST yourself — sometimes less is more.