Adaptations to Exercise

During the first few weeks of an exercise program the body goes through many changes.  For the new endurance walker or runner, the 4-5 training sessions you do each week trigger a lot of positive changes both on the inside and on the outside. The body’s adaptations to exercise take time —doing too much too soon can damage your body rather than strengthening it.  It takes a consistent, and progressively more difficult, effort over an extended period to develop athletic performance. This is true for elite athletes and it is also true for beginners. Remember, everyone starts as a beginner. The number one priority for athletes of all abilities is to avoid injury so that training can continue and performance can improve. This means carefully balancing how much time is spent each week working out at low intensity, moderate intensity, vigorous intensity and no intensity (resting). This is not an art, it is science.  A long distance training schedule is based on that science. If followed, it works!

Following your training schedule will enable your body to keep up with the demands you are putting on it. This is why it is vitally important that you do not skip your 2-3 short weekday walks or once per week long distance walk (unless you are sick or injured that week.)  Over time, doing too little will damage your muscles and internal systems because you will be overworking them on the days when you exercise. Just because you can make your body exercise just once per week does not mean that it is good for your body to do so!  It is also important that you gradually increase the intensity and duration of your workouts by following your schedule. If you do too much too soon, your body will not be able to keep up with you. It needs time to adapt to the additional workload and it needs rest to repair damaged tissues prior to your next workout.  

PLEASE NOTE: There are no shortcuts to fitness. That means you cannot ramp up too fast to get there more quickly; nor can you skip workouts to get there more easily (with less effort). You have to do exactly what is needed! 

THE FIRST FEW WEEKS

The early stage (first 4-6 weeks) adaptations are not visible to the naked eye but they are happening even though you are not consciously aware of them. You may think that not much is going on and that it is taking a long time to see any real progress. You are making a huge amount of progress but it is happening on the inside so you are not aware of it. These internal changes must happen before the external changes will become apparent. The good news is that the changes on the inside are improving your health considerably. In a few weeks, your fitness level will have improved considerably as well!

• Week one—you will generally be feeling pretty good, energized and enthusiastic.
• Weeks 2 and 3—you will likely feel more tired and sore than week 1 and the perceived effort of exercise will be greater. This is because your body is doing a HUGE amount of work on the inside. You might start to doubt your ability during these couple of weeks and lose some of your enthusiasm. Do not give up! Everything that is happening is completely normal and indicates that your body is adapting as it should to the exercise.
• Weeks 4 to 6—you should start to feel less tired and sore and the perceived effort should start to decrease for the same level of exercise. When you get to this stage it means that your body has completed the first phase of chronic adaptation to endurance exercise. Congratulations – you are now an athlete!

You are now much healthier than when you started and are ready to begin increasing your fitness (which will continue to chronically adapt your body but at a slower pace so it won't exhaust you).

It is important to be aware that if you stop exercising now, all those fantastic and healthy changes that happened in your body will reverse so that in a few weeks you will be back to exactly where you started. 

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY BODY DURING EXERCISE?

During exercise your body experiences various acute responses (whether you are a new or an experienced exerciser). These acute responses include (but are not limited to), increased heart rate, sweating, energy consumption, muscle contraction and relaxation, and blood redistribution to active muscles. You can feel your body responding acutely to the exercise even if you cannot see exactly what it is doing. You feel your heart rate increasing and your temperature rising. You feel your muscles warming up, becoming more flexible and contracting and relaxing as you move. Within an hour or so of stopping exercise, you will notice that these acute responses cease and your body returns to its pre-workout state—which is good because this is what it is supposed to do.

What you are probably not aware of are the chronic adaptations to exercise that occur in the body of a new exerciser. Chronic adaptations are changes that happen to your body that will not return to their pre-workout state after you finish your workout. These changes are semi-permanent. This means that while you continue with an exercise program, the adaptations will stay. If you stop exercising altogether, within a few weeks your body will return to its pre-adaptation state. This is because your body makes changes to adapt to the activities that you perform. If you stop performing those activities, your body will reverse those changes because you no longer need them. This is the use it or lose it rule!

CHRONIC ADAPTATIONS TO ENDURANCE EXERCISE

In the first two weeks of training your blood volume will increase by 12-20%. This is due to an increase in blood plasma. This increase in blood volume reduces the viscosity (thickness) of your blood so that it can get to exercising muscles more quickly. This increase in blood volume means that your heart can become stronger and increase how much blood it pumps with each beat. The left ventricle of your heart will get stretched by the higher volume of blood and over time will increase in size. In addition, the walls of the left ventricle will become thicker and stronger. This means that more blood can enter the heart and the contraction that pumps the blood out to the body will be much stronger. 

Over the first few weeks of exercising, your resting heart rate will decrease by as much as 10-20 beats per minute (bpm). Your exercise heart rate will also decrease as much as 20 bpm or more. Your maximal heart rate will not change but you will be able to workout at a much higher intensity without your heart rate increasing as much. Your heart will be stronger reducing your risk of cardiovascular problems. 

Your muscles will also adapt. They will better utilize existing blood capillaries and create lots of new ones so that your muscles can extract more oxygen from the blood flowing through them. More oxygen extracted by the muscles means greater endurance in your muscles and more efficient use of your lungs (which are also strengthening). This means you will not get tired as quickly. 

Your body will become more effective at redistributing blood flow from inactive muscles and organs to active muscles during exercise so they work more efficiently thereby increasing endurance. This redistribution includes reducing the flow of blood to the digestive system during exercise (this is why you need to eat easily digestible foods before your long miles.)  

BENEFITS

In addition to knowing you are healthier and fitter and being proud of your new status as an athlete, there are other benefits to regular exercise. Your risk factor for many medical conditions and diseases is decreased significantly. These include, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s. 

In addition to the decreased risk factors, you may also see improvements in existing conditions. People with borderline or moderately elevated blood pressure often experience blood pressure lowering to normal levels as a result of consistent exercise. Studies have shown that diabetics who consistently perform endurance exercise often require less insulin than before starting endurance training— a result of the body’s chronic adaptation to endurance exercise. Cholesterol levels can also be improved with regular exercise combined with a healthy diet.

The feel-good hormones in your body are also being stimulated much more often so you will feel happier and more energized the fitter you get. You will have better posture, better body composition (more lean body mass), and will feel (and look) more confident, poised and healthy. 

Keep training and you will continue to become stronger, healthier, fitter, and happier!

..........Coach Leenie

Choosing the Right Athletic Walking Shoes

If you are not wearing the right shoes, or are wearing shoes that are old and worn out, you are likely to experience problems and injuries. Make sure you visit a specialist running shoe store to purchase your athletic walking shoes. Buying shoes online or at a discount shoe store is OK if you have been fitted for the right shoes and know exactly what you need. Buying shoes online at random, because you like the color or the price, or because one of your friends recommended them is a sure way to create problems for yourself! Shoes that work for someone else will not necessarily work for you. Your feet need a shoe designed for your exact foot type not for someone else's feet.

Athletic walkers should wear running shoes not walking shoes. Walking shoes are heavy and designed for hiking not for athletic walking. You need a lightweight shoe so a running shoe is perfect. Make sure it is flexible at the places where your foot needs to flex (at the toes for example). If the shoe is rigid where your toes bend, you will not be able to push off properly. This is less important for runners than it is for walkers.

Some running shoe stores will offer a diagnostic service to determine which type of shoe you should wear. Sometimes the store will film you running on a treadmill  – either wearing shoes or barefoot. Alternatively, they may watch you walk or run and use their personal experience to determine the best type of shoe for you. Although some of the  diagnostics may seem very technical and complicated, they are not always accurate. Some stores use these diagnostics to confuse or scare you and upsell you to the most expensive shoes, inserts, socks and any other accessories they think they can convince you to buy! Bear in mind that the people conducting these “tests” are not doctors, exercise physiologists, physical therapists or experts in biomechanics. They are shop assistants/sales associates and they have probably received 30 minutes or so training on the equipment and a lot more training on how to sell you lots of stuff! Even if the sales associate has the best intentions, he or she is not a qualified practitioner and may not be giving you the best advice.

There are many reputable running stores with very knowledgeable staff. However, you must keep in mind that they are helping you select shoes based on their knowledge of shoes, not on their knowledge of your feet. Your feet are unique to you so you cannot expect a salesperson to understand them in quite the same way that you do. If you know all about your own feet, you can work more effectively with a running shoe salesperson to select the best shoes to fit them. Be sure to share as much information as you can about your feet and your shoe-wearing experiences. For example, if you often get blisters or aches and  pains in your feet or toes, share this information. If you roll your ankles often this is an indicator of how much stability would be appropriate in a shoe. The shoe salesperson cannot glean this type of information just from looking at your feet or shoes. Your input is invaluable. To learn more about your feet, this link will take you to my post about getting to know your know feet.
 

If the sales associate works on commission he or she will have a huge incentive to sell you the most expensive pair of shoes in the store. So, bear this in mind while being dazzled with lots of tech speak about pronation, supination and heel-toe drop!

I highly recommend that you visit a specialty running store to buy shoes especially if it is your first time being fitted for proper long distance walking/running shoes.  A chain store or generic sports store will not have specialized athletic shoe personnel available. They will not let you wear the shoes to test them out properly in the parking lot; neither will they give you a month or more to try them out and then let you bring them back and exchange them if you decide you don't like them. Specialty running stores have higher priced shoes but you will get much more personalized service. They are committed to getting you into the best possible shoe for you and it is not always possible to determine what that shoe will be without you walking a few miles in them over 2-4 weeks!


SHOE SIZE
NEVER, EVER buy running shoes in your normal shoe size! No one cares what size shoes you wear. Don’t buy smaller shoes because you want your feet to look smaller or you are concerned about being a bigger size. That type of vanity will result in discomfort and injuries (and money wasted on shoes that you will end up having to replace long before they are at the end of their useful lives).

Your running shoe should be 1 to 1.5 sizes LARGER than your normal shoe size. You need at least a thumbs width of space between your longest toe and the end of the shoe (measured on your largest foot when you are standing up wearing the shoe). If you wear shoes smaller than this, your feet will not be able to move in the shoe properly. This will decrease shock absorption. Your feet will naturally swell as you walk or run long distances. You need enough room in the shoe to allow for this and to make sure your toes are not cramped. Wearing shoes that are not large enough can result in excessive swelling, numbness, blisters, bruised (or lost) toenails, and general fatigue in your feet. Right-sized and right-fitted shoes will enable you to build endurance and speed. The wrong shoes will not. Experienced walkers and runners always buys their shoes the right size (1 – 1.5 sizes larger than their normal size). Rookies will often buy shoes too small. This may be because they don’t know about needing a larger size for running and walking. Sometimes the sales associate may not tell them they need a larger size. Other times the rookie is advised they need a larger size but they refuse to believe it and insist on buying shoes too small. The millions of runners and walkers around the world know what they are talking about. If you listen to those with more experience, you will make fewer mistakes and end up with fewer injuries!

HOW LONG SHOULD MY SHOES LAST?
Running shoes will last for approximately 400 miles. Some shoes will last for only 200 miles and others for 600 miles. Heavier folks usually wear shoes out faster than lighter ones. Walkers usually wear shoes out faster than runners. If you start to get aches and pains or fatigue in your legs or hips that are unusual, it is very likely because your shoes need replacing. Keep track of the mileage on your shoes. When you get to 400 miles, if you have not replaced them yet, you should really be thinking about doing so. I highly recommend using a software program to keep track of your running/walking miles. An excellent free software program is Sport Tracks. You can sync a GPS watches with the program or enter your mileage manually. You can also import data from other programs. Enter your shoes into the program, keep track of each walk and it will calculate the current mileage on them. I like this program so much I upgraded to the paid version. It is much more convenient than trying to keep track of shoe mileage in a spreadsheet!

MOST IMPORTANT - Only wear your athletic walking or running shoes when you are athletically walking or running. They are not everyday shoes. They should be worn just for your workouts. When you buy new running shoes, you can repurpose your old ones as everyday “going to the store” or “working in the garden” shoes.