While formalized exercise science is a young field, exercise is not. Physical training has been performed for millennia, with references going back to Hippocrates. Despite not having formalized research until recently, exercise and its concepts have progressed and developed. Research is now confirming or explaining the “why” behind what has been developed over the years of practice and unformalized research.
One of these concepts related to training and progressive overload is balancing the reactivity and resistance to a load.
Resistance is the ability to handle a given load, and reactivity is the potential for that load to cause a desired adaptive response. Reactivity drives quick improvements, but it can also lead to overtraining if overused. Resistance, while often seen as a plateau, is essential to stabilize and solidify those gains. By wisely alternating between these phases, you can ensure steady, safe, and lasting progress in your training.
Initially, reactivity will be high and resistance low, hence making it easy to overtrain. As training continues at that given load, reactivity will decrease, and resistance will increase. The response and the progress will become more stable.
It sounds easy enough, but there are pitfalls to how the progression from high reactivity with low resistance to low reactivity with high resistance is applied.
Pitfall #1—The classic too much too soon/often
The power of being in a high-reactive state is alluring and leads to overtraining/overloading. An incredibly high percentage of training problems arise from this lack of load management. Joint soreness and tendinopathies are frequently due to too much too soon/often. The low resistance to the new training load makes it easy to overload the tissues before they adapt.
Pitfall #2—Progress before stabilization
There is a time frame in the progression towards low reactivity with high resistance where students are tempted to move to another increase in load to bring back the high reactivity state. This is a mistake for two reasons. First, the progression to high resistance is necessary for tissue adaptation and resilience. Second, the gains from the state of high reactivity are not stable yet. “Cementing” the neurological and mechanical adaptations takes time, and when enough time is not spent consolidating the progress into long-term adaptations, they are perishable and quickly lost. This is why most periodization routines have mesocycles of 6 weeks in length, even though the initial 2 weeks see the most progress.
Pitfall #3—Know when to move on
Pitfalls #1 and #2 can cause students to hesitate to move to the next progression for fear of falling into one of the pits. A period of stabilization and achieving the high resistance with a low reactivity state should be as long as necessary but not longer. How will you know when to move on? A drop in the rating of perceived exertion (RPE) over a few sessions—not just a drop in one—can indicate moving towards higher resistance to a load. Another indicator is increased density or accomplishing the same volume of work in less time—such as a decrease in your Timeless S&S swings that stabilize for a few sessions. In the end, accurately tracking your training and identifying your individual progression will be key.
Kettlebell Simple & Sinister is a minimalist routine in which the progression of resistance and reactivity plays out amongst the pitfalls. Students often do too much too soon and/or try to progress before stabilization, and they may finally fall into the trap of not making progress because they are afraid of the other pitfalls.
If you want to understand training concepts like resistance and reactivity, then Programming Demystified with Pavel and Fabio Zonin is the course you seek to deepen your knowledge.
