002 The Principle of Accommodation

The principle of accommodation is fundamental to all exercise that aims to increase the body’s level of fitness, strength, endurance, or muscularity.

This principle holds that when the body is stressed to a certain degree through exercise, and is then allowed to recuperate properly, the body accommodates the level of stress imposed on it by becoming stronger or more fit.

For example, let’s say your goal is to increase the size or strength of a particular muscle. If you exercise that muscle with a specific amount of weight, it will eventually accommodate the level of weight used by becoming larger and stronger.

While most people are vaguely aware of how accommodation works, most of them are unaware that certain conditions must be fulfilled for accommodation to occur.

The most important of these conditions is sufficient recuperation following each bout of exercise.

Put simply, post-workout recuperation is at least as important in building fitness, strength, endurance, or muscularity as is working out itself.

Another way to think about it is this:  working out at the gym doesn’t make your body stronger. In fact, it makes it weaker. It’s only during the post-workout recuperation phase of training that muscles become more fit, stronger, or larger.

Why is this? 

Let’s say we were to surgically remove a tiny amount of tissue from a muscle targeted by exercise both before and after a particular bout of exercise.

If we then were to examine the “before” and “after” specimens of muscle tissue under a microscope and compare them, we’d find that the “after” specimen would show that the bout of exercise produced tiny, microscopic tears in the target muscle. These tiny, microscopic tears would be absent in the “before” specimen.

The major purpose of the recuperation phase of training is to allow the body to heal these tiny tears in the muscle tissue.

Once these tiny tears have been allowed to heal completely, recuperation from working out is complete, which allows the target muscle to become stronger than before. This is because during the recuperation phase of training, the body adds a small amount of additional tissue to the muscle, which makes it larger, and thence, stronger.

However, if these tiny tears in the muscle tissue that result from exercise are not allowed to heal completely before working out again, the desired gains in fitness, strength, and muscle size from working out will fall short of what they would have been, had the body been allowed to recuperate completely.

In addition to recuperation repairing these tiny tears in muscle tissue caused by exercise, recuperation has another function.

While the actual chemistry of muscle contraction is infinitely complex, most everyone familiar with exercise is aware that muscle contraction produces small amounts of toxic by-products. It’s the presence of these toxic by-products of muscle contraction that causes sore, stiff, or aching muscles when the exercise workload has been increased more rapidly than the body can rid itself of them.

Recuperation’s second function is to allow these toxic by-products of muscle contraction to be removed from muscle tissue. Circulation of blood through sore and stiff muscles carries these toxic by-products of muscle contraction to the liver where they are de-activated and neutralized, and prepared for removal from the body through urination or excretion.

This is why a very gentle dose of very light exercise of sore, stiff, or aching muscles when you’ve accidentally gotten a bit too enthusiastic with your workout helps speed recovery. This light dose of exercise improves blood circulation, allowing the toxic by-products of muscle contraction to be carried away and deactivated more quickly.

In sum, what’s ultimately important with regard to recuperation is that it’s complete prior to undertaking the next bout of exercise. If recuperation is incomplete, some tiny tears in the muscle tissue and some toxic by-products will remain in the muscle tissue.

And if recuperation is repeatedly incomplete, an increasing number of tiny tears in the muscle tissue and toxic by-products of muscle contraction will build up in the target muscle over time.

If this cycle persists long enough, trainees eventually collapse in exhaustion, give up physical training completely, and abandon their physical transformation goals. This process at most takes only a couple of weeks to run its course.

I have seen this tragic outcome occur more times than I can count.

This training dead-end occurs not for want of enthusiasm, but because no one has advised trainees of the importance of recuperation, particularly during the beginning stages of an exercise program.

At the onset of any exercise program, particularly when undertaken by fully deconditioned individuals, the body responds to any increase in exercise workload in the same ancient, primordial way our bodies learned to respond during our extensive hunting-and-gathering period when food and water alike was scarce and its supply unsure.

Endorphins, natural painkillers, and other “feel-good” hormones flood the tissues, shutting off responses that signal pain, hunger, thirst, tiredness, and overwork.

These hormonal responses were necessary to help us survive our extensive hunting-and-gathering period. Often, we had to walk dozens of miles a day to find food or water, or run to catch game when we were weakened by hunger or dehydration. At such times, our bodies learned to activate our emergency hormonal system that would keep us going until we had sufficient food or water to allow us to survive.

In modern times, at the onset of any exercise program, our bodies similarly respond by releasing a surge of hormones that block the body’s signals that either tell a trainee that it’s time to back off on the exercise workload or stop – or make them stop. This is the source of well-intentioned, but uninformed trainees literally working their bodies to collapse.

In light of the above, two things are important when deconditioned individuals first begin exercising.

First, deconditioned individuals – those who are completely deconditioned in particular – tend to grossly overestimate the amount of workload the body can handle when first beginning an exercise regime.

For example, let’s say a fully deconditioned individual decides to begin a regime of jogging or running, and resolves to begin with running one mile per day.

On his or her first day, this individual may only be capable of running or jogging 10-20 yards before becoming fatigued.

That’s fine.

Rather than being embarrassed or concerned, the correct response is to acknowledge 10-20 yards as the appropriate starting point for the running or jogging program.

If you find yourself in this situation, remind yourself that you’re “starting where you’re starting”, and go with what your body tells you.

Develop ways of your own to scale back your exercise workload until it’s manageable for you. It doesn’t matter whether you, say, run 10 strides and then walk 10, 20, or 30 steps before running another 10 strides, or whether you simply walk as briskly – or even as moderately – as possible instead of running during your first few workouts. Even if you choose to simply walk briskly, it’s likely you’ll need to scale back your pace to complete, say, a 10-minute workout.

Remind yourself that the purpose of your workout is to build strength, fitness, or endurance, not to demonstrate it to yourself or others.

Above all else, remember:  it’s your workout, no one else’s, and the purpose of your first few workouts is to establish a benchmark exercise workload – regardless of how light – that your body can easily accommodate and recuperate from.

During your first few workouts, you should thus focus your conscious awareness on establishing an appropriate benchmark workload, and even more importantly, understanding the recuperation pathway your body follows during the hours and days that follow each workout.

Remember once again that the vast majority of deconditioned individuals who begin an exercise regime grossly overestimate rather than underestimate the workload at which it’s appropriate to begin.

Following each of your first few workouts, continually monitor what your body feels like over the 24 and 48 hours that follow – and don’t exercise again until your body tells you that your recuperation is complete. Note that when fully deconditioned individuals first start exercising, it’s not uncommon for recuperation from even tiny exercise workloads to take several days.

This is caused by relatively weakened circulation of blood through the target muscles because the heart and circulatory system in general have not yet been strengthened through exercise.

Circulation of blood through muscles that have been targeted by exercise has two functions during the recuperation phase of training.

First, it carries the nutrients essential for repairing tiny tears in the muscle tissue to the locations where they are needed. Temporarily decreased blood circulation to the affected muscles due to physical deconditioning means that fewer nutrients are carried to the tissues each hour, thus prolonging repair of the tiny tears in the muscle tissue caused by exercise.

Second, blood circulation to the affected muscles carries the toxic by-products of muscle contraction away the affected tissues, and into the liver where they are broken down and deactivated. When blood circulation to the affected muscles is temporarily reduced due to physical deconditioning, the toxic by-products of muscle contraction are carried away more slowly, thus lengthening the recuperation process.

Both of these factors prolong the recuperation phase of training when deconditioned individuals first begin exercising.

That said, gradual increases in the exercise workload over time improve blood circulation. This causes the nutrients necessary for repair of muscle tissues to flow more rapidly to the locations where they’re needed, thus shortening recuperation.

Similarly, as blood circulation gradually improves in tandem with increases in the exercise workload, the rate at which the toxic by-products of muscle contraction are removed increases. This likewise shortens the recuperation phase of training.

The two most important things to remember when first beginning any exercise regime are thus as follows.

First, keep scaling back the exercise workload on your initial workouts until it’s low enough that the body can handle it with ease. Your body will tell you if the workload you have chosen exceeds what’s manageable.

Be ready for the appropriate exercise workload to be significantly lower than you estimated at the beginning of your workout, and downscale the workload accordingly. Keep reminding yourself that your goal is to build fitness, strength, endurance, or muscularity, not to demonstrate it to yourself or others.

Getting past the “feel-good” responses to exercise from the endorphins, natural painkillers, and other hormones our bodies release in response to exercise is likely to require some self-restraint, particularly when you first begin exercising.

While these hormones will make a part of you feel as enthusiastic and invincible as Superman or Wonder Woman, your body will tell you when you’ve had enough because exhaustion will set in – often in a matter of minutes.

It’s important to respond to these exhaustion signals by backing off on the exercise workload, or even terminating your workout as soon as they appear. Far better to under-do than over-do, until you learn how extensive the recuperation phase from a particular exercise workload level will be. This is particularly important during your first few workouts.

Second, learn everything you can about the way your body progresses through the recuperation phase of training.

Regardless of how long it takes you to completely recuperate from your first few workouts, focus on continually monitoring what your body feels like 1, 2, 3, 10, 24, and even 48 hours or more following your workout.

Notice the changes that occur in the way your body feels as it moves through the recuperation process. Are you tired? Alert? Ravenously hungry? Turned off by food? Craving hours and hours of sleep? Feeling revved up?

All of these outcomes are possible and normal responses as your body’s hormonal balance begins to adjust to exercising, which is a process that usually takes about 1-2 weeks to complete. Neither these responses themselves or how rapidly they change or morph from one into another need be cause for alarm. They’re normal.

What’s happening is that your body’s long-standing hormonal equilibrium has been temporarily disturbed by beginning your exercise regime.

Typically, during your first two weeks when you’re figuring out how your body’s recuperative pathway works, your diet is likely to be all over the place. This, too, is the result of your body’s former hormonal equilibrium being temporarily disturbed when you first begin exercising.

Don’t be alarmed. Your diet will straighten itself out shortly as your body reaches its new hormonal equilibrium. Sometimes you may feel turned off by food, while at others, you’ll want to eat ravenously. This is both normal and transitory.

When it comes to your diet during this period, above all else, be gentle and patient with your body, as it learns how to respond to the exercise workload you recently began placing on it.

Because your body is in a state of hormonal flux as it adjusts to exercising, this is not the time for dietary restrictions or “dieting like a fiend”, even if the “feel-good” hormones your body is releasing tempt you to do so like a siren’s song.

If your body temporarily responds to exercise with ravenous hunger during recuperation, understand that this will quickly pass in a day or two. The same is true of being turned off by food, or excessive tiredness or wakefulness.

Let your body settle down into its own exercise-recuperation pattern before you begin to alter your nutritional regime. Don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of blog posts later on that address how to use your nutritional regimen to achieve your physical transformation goal.

Be patient, be gentle, and you’ll be amazed at how rapidly your body finds its “sea legs” within your new context of exercise and recuperation.

Note also that all relatively dramatic increases in exercise workload cause wakefulness in the middle of the night, regardless of how tired you feel when you first go to sleep. This, too, results from your body’s former hormonal equilibrium being temporarily disturbed when you first begin your exercise regime.

This is yet another reason to exercise self-restraint when you first begin exercising, as the degree of wakefulness you will experience will roughly parallel the exercise workload you’ve placed on your body.

This period of wakefulness usually lasts one to three hours, and once it runs its course, it gives way to deep, sound sleep. During this period of wakefulness, your mind is likely to race, your thoughts changing and flying quickly by on the screen of your imagination.

If you pay close attention to your recuperation pathway, you’ll also notice that somewhere between 20 and 22 hours after you complete your workout, your energy level will suddenly dip dramatically to a level so low that you’ll feel like lying down for a time.

When this occurs, if at all possible, lie down and close your eyes. You’ll most likely descend into a deep sleep. But don’t worry, you won’t sleep long.

Within about 20-40 minutes, you’ll awake refreshed and your energy will have rebounded, and you’ll have energy throughout the rest of your day. If for whatever reason, you can’t – or don’t – lie down and doze off for a few minutes when this down-time occurs, you’ll end up being tired and dragging through the rest of your day.

Once you realize that this pattern occurs after each and every workout, you’ll be able to better time your workouts so that this down-time doesn’t, say, interfere with your work schedule. For example, if you work all day, then perhaps try working out before you go to work. This schedule would re-position your down time to the hours just before you would naturally wake up anyway.

Think of this period of learning about your body’s recuperation pathway as both a journey of discovery of how your body works, and as an investment in your later rapid progress in reaching your physical transformation goal.

Learn how your body dances back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, between exercise workload and recuperation. This is vital to your long-term success in achieving your physical transformation goal. Ultimately, what you’re learning to do is to use the principle of accommodation to your greatest advantage.

On any day that you do exercise, do what you can, but don’t over-do. Be gentle with yourself. Recuperate completely before you exercise again, and most importantly, do your best to monitor and understand your body’s recuperation pathway as completely as possible.

Bottom line? If you want to achieve your fitness, endurance, strength, or muscularity goals as quickly as possible, treat your body as you would a loving pet.

Treat it lovingly, and just like a loyal pet, your body will reward you by fulfilling your goals quickly. However, if you mistreat it or abuse it by trying to beat it into shape or by not allowing it adequate recuperation, your body will turn on you – just like an abused pet would – by slowing or even halting your progress.

How do you know if you’re allowing your body adequate recuperation following a bout of exercise?

If you feel like you’d rather face King Kong than your workout, the recuperation phase of your training needs to be beefed up substantially.

Till next time,

Jock Scarsborough

Photo Credits:

I wish to express my sincere thanks to all of the dedicated photographers who have made their work freely available to yourhealthblog.org for unlimited personal and commercial use without permission being required, and without any restrictions whatsoever with regard to use or modification.

The photos in the blog post above appear under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, which may be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ To express my gratitude to the photographers, I have included in the table below the attributions for the photographs in order of their appearance in the blog post. These attributions are as follows:

No.	Title	Subject	Photographer	Download	Source
1	Olympic Bar Bicep Curls	Unidentified	Ivan Samkov	24 Oct 22	pexels-ivan-samkov-4162457
2	Deep Sleep	Unidentified	Danny G	24 Oct 22	danny-g-_Utk8ZYT4tI-unsplash
3	Massage on the Beach	Unidentified	Louis Hansel	24 Oct 22	louis-hansel-XYsMYtoM6dk-unsplash
4	Walking Up Steps	Unidentified	Bruno Nascimento	24 Oct 22	bruno-nascimento-PHIgYUGQPvU-unsplash
5	Shrimp Vermicelli	Unidentified	Polina Tankilevitch	24 Oct 22	pexels-polina-tankilevitch-4518686
6	Napping on the Beach	Unidentified	Dan Burton	24 Oct 22	dan-burton-3_5OfvOhvl4-unsplash