Relieve Low Back Pain | Reduce Low Back Pain | Canada's Leading Authority in Human Movement | Dev Chengkalath

As I said before, I’ll be spending some time going over the more salient points of exercise science as it relates to human performance.

And if you’re at all into human movement (which is why you’re reading this!), then you are most likely into improving performance.

This includes taking your abilities to the next level.  

In order to create a stimulus for performance enhancement, a certain amount of overload on the athlete’s system is required. Essentially, adaptation to training will only take place if the magnitude of the training load is greater than the level typically experienced by the athlete.

Milo's Bull Grew Too Fast

There are a couple methods how you, as coach or as an athlete, can induce this type of adaptation response.

The first method would involve an increase in your training load, either by increasing intensity or volume parameters, while using the same exercise or movement pattern.

The second would involve the introduction of a novel stimulus to your training. A similar yet different movement or a completely new exercise for example. 

In highly trained, elite level athletes, positive training adaptations may be lost in a matter of weeks or even days if the training stimulus is diminished. For this reason, elite competitive athletes should avoid complete passive rest greater than 3 days. For the rest of us trying to better ourselves, we have little more leeway in terms of rest and recovery periods.

The idea of training load, as broken down by Zatsiorsky and Kraemer, can be organized into three classes based on their magnitude:

• Stimulating: Magnitude above baseline, positive adaptation occurs.
• Retraining: Magnitude at baseline, fitness maintenance.
• Detraining: Magnitude below baseline, performance decrements

So where does that leave you?

Based on the above information, in order to create positive adaptation in your athletic ability, constant increases in training loads (stimulating) are required through progressive overloading.

Basically, as you or your athletes adapt to a certain stimulus level, a new baseline is achieved. In order to improve from that position, increased training loads that surpass this new baseline must be introduced.

It’s because this principle isn’t taken into account that you’ll see the same people doing the same things, with the same weight, day in, day out at your gym, week after week. And that is why they still look the same as the day they started.

So the take home point here is that the principle of progressive overload is fundamentally important in a carefully designed training program in order to reap the full benefits of adaptation, athletic or otherwise!

In the next installment of this series, I’ll delve deeper into the idea of accommodation under the Law of Adaptation. 

Until next time.

Yours in movement.

Dev Chengkalath

P.S. For those wondering about Milo’s Bull, a pretty good breakdown of the fable can be read here.

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

Victor Hugo

Over my lifetime in sport and fitness, I’ve picked up many lessons and missed out on just about as many. I’ve gone through the same ups and downs you have. I’ve been injured. I’ve had near misses. I’ve been lucky. I’ve set new personal bests. And I’ve failed more times than I can remember. Or care to remember. 

Through it all, I’ve learned many lessons.

Though the soccer pitch or the dingy gym called the “armpit” may not be a place of learning in the traditional sense, the lessons learned were no less important.

It may not be “school”, but teachers are all around us, if we care to learn.

Not all lessons are taught in the classroom

Coaches, teammates, opponents, physical therapists and trainers. Each has contributed in some way. Some forcing me to prove them wrong. Others forcing me to prove them right.

“Sorry Dev, you didn’t make the team, you’re not big enough, not strong enough.”

“Dev, we need you to nail that penalty kick. Don’t let us down!”

Sport granted me the basic tenets to continue to be active throughout my life and how to interact with others. It taught me basics such as discipline, determination and teamwork. It made me work my ass off to compete with those lucky or gifted or tenacious enough to be stronger, better or faster.

The iron taught me something different. 

It taught me to look within myself. To dig a little bit deeper, to go beyond losing fat, building six pack abs and big bench presses.

It taught me to defy gravity.

And isn’t that the purpose of being human? 

To move and fight against that unseen force?

When we stop moving, we start dying.

So keep moving.

Dev Chengkalath

David Bell, considered the founder of the discipline called parkour. 

Human Movement and Motor Control at its finest.

Now go out and move.

Dev Chengkalath

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Dev Chengkalath. And I’m obsessed with human movement.

I’m a high performance physical therapist and conditioning specialist in Toronto, Canada.

In addition to my  Toronto physiotherapy practice, I’ve started this blog to help you move better.

Basically, through these posts and pages I hope to share with you the passion I have for all things related to human movement and fitness, while exposing the myths and misinformation that has been propagated for years.

Feel free to read, browse, ask questions and learn.

To the pursuit of performance.

Yours in movement,

Dev Chengkalath