He SAID what? Part 1: Connecting Actions with Appearance
OK, probably my dumbest title ever. Forgive me.
Today’s blog post is about the SAID principle; or Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. This simply means that your body will adapt to the stress you put on your body by becoming better adapted to that particular stress. If you run fast, your body wants to adapt to become better at running fast. If you run for a long time at a slow pace, your body wants to become better at running for a long time at a slow pace. If you lift heavy weights, your body wants to become better at lifting heavy weights. Need I go on or do you get the pattern?
Unfortunately, as basic as the idea appears when written out like I did above, people often fail to make the connection. Why is that? Because often people are not thinking in terms of how they want their body to behave, rather, they are thinking of how they want their body to look.
Let me attempt to elaborate by writing it out.
How your body behaves (actions):
Run Fast, Run Far, Lift Heavy, Lift Long
How your body looks (appearance):
Slim/Lean, Muscular, Toned, Athletic
People are mostly thinking (there are always exceptions) in terms of the second list. They come to me and say they want to lose weight (slim/lean), gain muscle (muscular), or look more toned. The list is not exhaustive, but hopefully, you get the picture. One of the reasons they come to me for help is that they do not understand the activities required to get their body to look how they want it to look. They do not understand the connection between how their body behaves and how it looks. They forgot what their parents and grandparents told them, “Think before you act.”
Often mistakes are made such as this hypothetical thought process; “I want to be slimmer. Running far burns lots of calories. Therefore, I will run really far each day and be slimmer.”
However, whether you realize it or not, being slimmer means that you want your body to carry less body fat and retain muscle. I have not met anyone who wanted to lose muscle simply to attain their goal of having a lower scale weight. That would not make sense. We all preferentially want to retain our muscle and lose body fat in our attempts to get slimmer. Following the above thought process, simply running far each day without any other sensible training or dietary changes will result in a loss of muscle. This may indeed lead to a slimmer look but it will not be what they imagined.
Not as common is the mistake to lift long, illustrated by this hypothetical thought process; “I want to be slimmer. Lifting burns some calories, therefore, lifting for a long time will burn more calories. Lifting for a few reps burns some calories, therefore, lifting for very high reps will burn more calories. I will lift very high reps and spend a long time in the gym to get slimmer.”
As I said above, being slimmer means that you want your body to carry less body fat and retain muscle. Lifting very high reps and spending excessive amounts of time in the gym will be giving your body a signal to become better at endurance. Remember what SAID stands for, Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. Your body is adapting to the stress you put on it. It doesn’t know what you were HOPING for. It only knows what you DID. You worked out with high reps and for a long time, that sure sounds like endurance training, thus your body will get better at endurance.
Unfortunately, being better at endurance does not necessarily equal the look you were after. Granted this is anecdotal, but please look at the following photographs. I realize they illustrate the far end of either spectrum, but hopefully that helps to get the point across.
One male and one female from those photos are athletes that tend to train more with weights and shorter duration exercise and one male and female are athletes that train for long durations and long distances. Two of those athletes are closer to the classical ideal of ancient Greece, which also happens to coincide with what many people today would objectively say is handsome or beautiful (Hint: it's the two in the middle). While the other two athletes look frail and sickly in comparison.
Are there expections? Of course, you can find muscular endurance athletes. However, if you ask them about their training and diet you will likely find it is more in line with the type of training that produces a lean muscular physique.
Tune in next time for more information about the SAID principle.
