Law of Accomodation:
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The law of accommodation | Fit and Healthy
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NATE WILSON
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Feb 2, 2021
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Nate Wilson
Courtesy of Nate Wilson
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You can fight the law, but this law will win.
The law of accommodation says that we need to use a different stimulus on a regular
basis to achieve results. This means that using the same workout routine day in and
day out will eventually not produce new results, or results will dramatically decrease or
in the worst case you may backslide.
In certain situations, doing the same routine over and over again may also cause an
injury from wear and tear occurring on the same joints in the same exercise motions
from the same amount of tension. This is why we see high injury rates with running,
though there are correct ways to avoid injury through balancing strength exercises with
endurance training.
The human body loves homeostasis and likes to be balanced. It doesn’t like change or
discomfort, which is why exercise is so grueling at first. It’s estimated that around 4-6 six
weeks your body will hit a plateau in exercise. This is because your brain and body
have learned to be resistant to the same stimulus you’ve been using because your body
wants to stay in homeostasis as much as possible.
So how do you change the stimulus? The good news is there are many different
tensions, repetitions, sets and angles that you can use to switch up your workout or
“shock” your body. Something as simple as changing your grip in your bench press, or
the width of your feet in a squat can change the muscles that are being activated in
sequence, amount of tension and angle. For example, switching to a closer grip on the
bench press can place more focus on the triceps and front deltoids and less on the
chest and back during the movement. During a squat, if you choose a wider stance and
point your toes out, you can use the adductors on your inner thigh, hamstrings and
glutes more which can save some wear and tear on your knees.
With experience, proper form, speed and maybe even using a spotter, changing your
repetitions to a lower range and increasing tension may help you beat a plateau as well.
This means increasing the weight and lowering the reps may also get you stronger and
reduce the amount of volume or wear and tear you are placing on your joints. Now,
there is a flipside in which too much heavy lifting and low reps without the
accommodation of light weight and higher reps can cause a plateau and injury as well.
But I’d like to clear the misconception that heavy lifting is bad for you, because if done
correctly it can actually reduce the wear and tear and strengthen the connective tissue
for your joints.
Placing different types of tension on your muscles can be beneficial as well. For
instance, if you have been using dumbbells to do bicep curls for two months, simply
switching to a resistance band or cables can change the way the movement of a simple
dumbbell curl places tension on the muscle. Because of the tension of resistance
bands, the movement of the bicep curl will be higher at the top, meaning it will be
heavier. When you do a cable curl, the tension is constantly pulling at the same rate
with no resting point, because the resistance is constant on the cable, unlike a
dumbbell. Adding chains to a barbell during a curl can have a similar effect, in that they
are heavier at the top, and also require more stability muscles because they osculate, or
move around in the air causing you to have to stabilize the bar in order to lift it correctly.
Using different tempos with the same exercises can throw your body and central
nervous system for a loop, too. For example, when most people do push-ups, they do
them at a fairly quick tempo. Most people like to see how many push-ups they can do
and do their best to power through a high number of reps. But, what if we slow the
push-ups down? What if you take four seconds to lower yourself to the ground and you
take 2-3 seconds to push back up? Since you are going significantly slower, you won’t
be able to do as many repetitions. Your body is going to be recruiting different muscle
fibers to push against the longer amount of tension being placed on it. Using a slower
tempo is also an opportunity to slow down and practice good form. Essentially you are
programming your brain to slow down and learn the proper motion to perform the given
exercise.
The body and brain like to be comfortable and will search for the easiest way to slip into
homeostasis. It’s our job to look at the long-term goals in terms of health and fitness and
determine how we can best find progress in definition, strength, weight loss or
endurance by finding the best accommodating exercises. Read articles, talk with your
personal trainer and take a look around the gym to see if there are new exercises you
could be doing to avoid plateaus!
Nate Wilson is a certified personal trainer through NASM and is the owner of Elite
Fitness LLC. He is certified for Fitness Nutrition and is a Behavior Change Specialist.
Contact Nate at 640-0668 or Natewilson0223@gmail.com.
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