'Slow and Steady Wins the Race': The 4 key exercise principles

This was first published at https://complete.clinic/2024/09/slow-and-steady-wins-the-race-4-key-exercise-principles/

The further I get into my career as a trainer the more I like the analogy of the tortoise and the hare. Consistency is king: the tortoise slowly chipping away at a goal is often better than the hare throwing everything at a goal for a short time and then taking a break because of burnout or injury.

This blog will cover four key exercise principles that help underpin why consistency is king! The big take-home message is that consistently training and challenging yourself just enough will have the best cost-to-benefit ratio (in most circumstances) and increase the chance of succeeding in your physical goals.

Individualisation

First off we will cover some key exercise principles, the first of these is individualisation. Much like we would know humans that resemble the tortoise or the hare we all have different physiology. Different physiology means that we will be better suited for other activities and we may respond differently to the same training stimulus. In the above example, the tortoise may have more slow twitch fibres, which are more fatigue-resistant. In contrast, the hare would have comparatively more fast twitch fibres allowing it to run quicker and giving it a greater capacity for strength and power adaptations.

Therefore we should not compare ourselves to others (unless we are in a competitive sporting environment), but rather look to how we have previously responded for a better indication. This becomes very apparent when two individuals are looking to gain muscle often on a similar program. It is common to have some types of people who respond very quickly, while it may take another person much longer to achieve a similar result. Given the differences in how each individual responds, different types of training may be better suited for each individual and training should be tailored as much as possible. This also goes with calibrating expectations of the time it will take to reach goals.

Specificity

Individuals have attributes that are advantageous for different activities, however, our training will also play a large role in our strengths. The second key exercise principle is referred to as specificity. Bringing back the tortoise and hare analogy, the tortoise could be someone who likes to run slowly over long periods, while the hare could be a footballer who regularly performs sharp sprints and then walks for recovery. If the hare wanted to improve his distance running time he would benefit from introducing longer runs so he could practice his pacing and ability to continue running. In contrast, the tortoise would benefit from some shorter speed work to improve his overall running speed. Given the tortoise's speed is its weakest link and the hare's limitation is its ability to pace and run continuously, these examples may help improve their overall performance.

Progressive overload

Now the impatient hare has a new plan of action to beat the tortoise. The hare throws themselves into a new training program, thus dramatically altering their current program as opposed to building their training volume up slowly. If the hare was to double their current running kilometres per week they may have an increased soreness and risk of injury. To cause the body to adapt we typically want to dose our exercise appropriately. The third exercise principle is progressive overload, essentially we need to challenge the body to cause it to adapt, however, and we need to consider how much we want to challenge it.

Reversibility

If the hare were to get injured with the large change in their programming, they may need to take some time off. Taking time off will cause their performance to go backwards as training adaptations are reversible. Reversibility is our final key exercise principle, essentially it states that you need to ‘use it or lose it’. For example, our body aims to improve its efficiency wherever it can and if it doesn't need to keep spending energy on maintaining certain adaptations such as maintaining big muscles it will slowly reduce their size. So doing your best to reduce your chance of injury, should help your long-term performance as you will be able to hold on to your hard-earned fitness.

Conclusion

In this post, I listed four key exercise principles: individualization, specificity, progressive overload and reversibility. When you're altering your training program it's important to consider your strengths and weaknesses and how you have responded to exercise in the past. You

should be aware of the modality of your training, as well as how much and the rate at which you change the dosage. Finally, getting injured will result in you losing some of your training adaptations. So reducing your chance of injury by managing your training load is one of the best ways to achieve long-term success.

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