How to Personalize Your Fitness Program

How to Individualize Your Exercise Program for Optimal Results

by Doug Jackson, M.Ed., CSCS

Have you ever seen two people on the same exercise program get different results? Sure. We are all different and respond differently to different exercise programs, just as we respond differently to different diets.

With both diet and exercise, there seems to be ground rules that work for everyone to create a necessary foundation, but as you advance in fitness, you need to individualize your program for optimal results. That's the focus of this article.

One of the key considerations in your exercise program is recovery time. Recovery time is the time it takes your body to recover and grow stronger from a workout so you are in better shape the next time you workout.

Now if you are just exercising when you get a chance or just getting a walk in every now and then, this doesn't really apply to you. But for people who are consistently and strenuously exercising, recovery time becomes critically important.

The basic idea is that if you don't give yourself enough recovery time, you will eventually physically and/or mentally burn out. This state is sometimes called overtraining.

Signs of overtraining include a lack of exercise motivation (in people who are normally motivated), being overly tired yet having restless sleep, chronically sore muscles, lack of appetite, and sometimes a quick decrease in bodyweight (no, this isn't good!).

On the other hand, many of us workout too inconsistently, allow too much recovery time, and fail to see the intended physical reaction.

The key is to time your workouts correctly so that you are more fit from one workout to the next. You need to time your next workout so it occurs when your body is in a "supercompensation" phase.

The idea of supercompensation is a critical foundational element of strength training. Modern strength training program design has been influenced much by Hans Selye's theory of General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS).

To put it simply, in Selye's theory, anytime the body incurs a stimulus (a workout) it will adapt to that stimulus. If it can't adapt, it will get sick, get injured, or die.

However, it is also known that after the stimulus (workout) there is a period of shock, what Selye calls the Alarm Phase, where the body will actually be weaker than before the initial stimulus.

If we train the body again while it is still in the Alarm Phase, we will continue to get weaker and approach overtraining.

However, after enough time has passed, we enter the Resistance Phase, where the body supercompensates and becomes stronger. If we do not workout during this time, the body will eventually lose the gained strength and return to the initial strength level.

The key is to properly "guesstimate" when you will reach supercompensation and workout again during this phase.

Let's apply this specifically to your strength training program. Hypothetically speaking, let's say that you are on a three day per week, whole-body strength training program where you strength train every other day (this is a standard routine for general fitness). Let's also say that you are doing a standard three sets of ten repetitions and you are completing one exercise for each major muscle group.

I can guarantee you that if I put five different people of the same sex with no strength training experience on this same routine for eight weeks, I would see a wide variety of results. Some of them would increase their strength dramatically, while others would not recover quickly enough and would not see any positive results.

Here's why: The largest factor affecting these differences is their differences in recovery ability. While they are all receiving the standard forty-eight hours between workouts to recover, they are recovering at different rates.

I regularly see people who need more time than the standard 48 hours to adapt and grow stronger for the next session. Some people will need 72-96 hours to recover. Heck, some bodybuilders take a week off between training the same body part again. For them, training within the standard guidelines is not a good idea.

The important question for you is: Do you recover quickly from intense exercise or do you need more time? Until you have a good idea, your program design is a crap shoot.

The next question is: How do we optimize our workouts and our lifestyle so we can continue making improvements in our fitness level?

To answer this, we need to know what factors affect our recovery ability. While many factors are included in this and I could write a book about it, the main factors include: genetics, sleep, nutrition status, and overall stress level.

Inadequate sleep, poor nutrition not including enough high-quality protein and carbohydrates as well as drinking too much alcohol, and how stressed we are all affect our recover ability from exercise.

All of these factors interact with various body systems to either make us more fit or less fit. For example, all of these examples tend to promote the release of cortisol,a catabolic hormone which breaks down muscle tissue. All of these also decrease testosterone levels. With an increase in cortisol and decrease in testosterone, you can kiss strength training improvement good bye.

You need to be aware of these factors and how they affect your workout. Once these factors are understood, you can then try to improve your status amongst these factors, or adjust your workout program accordingly.

For example, I may know that strength training four to five times per week may be optimal for maximum strength gain, however, it's only optimal if the body can support that type of training. If my diet, sleep, and stress levels are in poor shape, it would not be advantageous for me to workout this often.

For example, I was working with nationally-known strength coach Charles Staley on my own workout program. He was aware that I was very busy and had a high stress level so he recommended that I only workout for two very intense sessions per week.

Two times per week! But keep in mind that from a physiological perspective, it's not the workouts that count, but the outcome. More is usually better, but not always.

Look at your current program and your lifestyle. Do they work together to create the results you are looking for?

If yes, great! Keep on doing a good job and don�t forget about how your lifestyle affects your performance in the gym as well as how your exercise program should be designed.

If you're not happy with your results, think about why. Are you undertraining or overtraining? If you are undertraining, you either need to workout more frequently, more intensely, or both. If you are overtraining, you either need to make your workouts less frequent, less intense, or both. Or you can make the decision to improve your lifestyle factors including sleep, nutrition, and stress level so you can adapt to your exercise program.

These concepts are advanced and they are critical. I've found that a lot of advanced strength trainers innately understand how this works, yet they may not understand why. On the other hand, some of the smartest scientist and researchers may understand why, but don't workout enough to relate the knowledge to gym-goers in a practical way.

I encourage you to find a mixture of in the trenches knowledge as well as the scientific understanding that supports you in your fitness and health. That's what I do. That's what I'm passionate about. To set up an appointment with me to discuss your exercise program goals and needs, email me at doug@personalfitnessadvantage.com

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