| Exercise
physiologists study how organisms react to stress, or a deviation from
homeostasis. In this case, the "stress" is exercise. Reactions to
exercise can be divided into two categories: Responses and
Adaptations.
To understand
the difference between responses and adaptations, it is important to
understand the difference between an acute and chronic bout of
exercise. One bout of exercise is termed acute exercise - for
example, one soccer practice or one resistance training session. A
reaction elicited from an acute event is called a response.
When acute exercise is performed
repetitively, we call it chronic exercise - for example, a month of
soccer practice or a year of resistance training. Chronic exercise
results in adaptations. Specifically, adaptations are defined as a
persistent change in structure or function after training.
Acute responses lead to chronic
adaptations. As a coach or professional, your goal is to design acute
tasks that will lead to chronic adaptations. Chronic adaptations
should lead to an increased training level and enable the body to
respond more easily to future exercise bouts. However, poor program
design can result in a decreased training level and may impair the
ability of the body to respond to future exercise bouts. |
