Continual Adaptation

 

The concept of continual adaptation is something I have been working to get my arms around since we all met to plan the Michigan Women’s swim dryland program this past September. Jim Richardson, Women’s swim coach at Michigan got me thinking about this. Continual adaptation is not continual improvement. Continual adaptation is a viable concept because different physical qualities adapt at different rates. By taking advantage of and manipulating the differing adaptation times it is possible to achieve continual adaptation. It is not liner it is an ever-ascending sinusoidal curve. Progress in performance is very step like. I liken it to a series of small plateaus with stairs in between the plateaus climbing to the desired peak performance in the peak competitive season. We must provide an optimal environment for continual adaptation by manipulating the training variables in a very systematic and sequential manner. Never lose sight of the fact that all systems of the body work at the same time very synergistically. Despite conventional wisdom that attempts to isolate systems of the body and then bring them back together at some magical time in the future. This is a process that is obviously coach driven. It demands careful monitoring of the key training parameters in the athletes program.