The Time-Saver's Workout by John Little

Author:John Little
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781510733312
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2018-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY PHENOMENON (C.E.P.)

Often what people take to be an improvement in their fitness level is, in reality, simply the body learning how to perform a given activity with less muscular/energy output and, thus, less involvement/improvement of one’s muscular and cardiovascular system. It needs to be pointed out that everything you do, from learning how to walk to running your first 10K, is a skill set that the body needs time and practice to adjust to. Initially, not being familiar with the requirements of the activity, the body will tackle it head on with everything it’s got. The body doesn’t know that you are doing the activity for recreational purposes or to improve your fitness level; all it knows is that its energy output requirements have suddenly spiked and that its survival might hinge on its ability to immediately meet these requirements in order to get you out of the situation that has suddenly caused a demand for more energy.

After repeated exposure to the same activity, however, the body begins to more critically assess the activity being performed in terms of its energy requirements and in terms of the precise amount of muscular involvement that is minimally necessary to accomplish the task. Eventually the body learns to perform the activity in a manner that requires far less muscle fiber involvement (and thus far less energy output) by keying in on precisely how many fibers are required at precisely what time in the movement and then proceeds to act on this calculus by reducing the involvement of muscle fibers and energy supplies that it views to be superfluous to the performance of the activity. This happens after repeated exposure to the said activity, resulting in the heart and lungs having to service the working of much less muscle tissue and our bodies not burning as much energy (calories) as they did when we performed the activity initially. Soon the same activity fails to stimulate the same biological response (which in this case would be the maximum recruitment of muscle fibers), and if one then wishes to have one’s body repeat that original metabolic response, the activity must somehow be altered. In the case of running, the run must be made longer, performed at a quicker pace, or an alternate terrain must be selected that is in some way different from what one has grown accustomed to. When this happens, the original “all-in” response returns.

However, if one is not aware of this phenomenon, one might mistakenly confuse this economization of energy and muscle fiber recruitment by the body as a sign of cardiovascular improvement. After all, when one starts running (even after a moderate hiatus) the effect is profound: the heart beats like a trip hammer, perspiration flows freely, muscles and joints ache the next day, and one is breathing heavily during the performance of the activity (and for many minutes afterward). A month later, however, that same run produces very few of the effects that had been felt so acutely the month before.

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