A house is not built without a blueprint, so why should your workouts be any different? If you understand the importance of training, then the next step is to learn the underlying principles that make training effective.

I wish to educate you to the five 'principles' of training that can help you create a blueprint and form a solid foundation for your training. Much of the credit for these principles goes to the International Sports Sciences Association. These principles are not meant to be 'absolute' - there are certainly other concepts - but they are a solid foundation. These principles can help produce phenomenal results in your training.

Principle of Individual Differences

The first principle celebrates the uniqueness of each individual. There are numerous factors that make you different from other people, from your height, weight, metabolism, and body fat, to the genetic make up of your heart and even the length of your bones and tendons.

Add to that different environments for training in (imagine training in the flat desert sun versus running a marathon in the cold at a higher altitude). The bottom line is that you are unique and your best training program may not exactly match someone else's. Any solid training system should take into account your individual differences.

The Overcompensation Principle

This explains why training works. When the body is subjected to stress, it overcompensates. When you cut yourself, the body heals the cut - but in doing so, it overcompensates and creates a scar. When you stress your cardiovascular system on a long run, the body will overcompensate by improving your cardiovascular health. The same principle applies to gaining strength, increasing speed, and building muscle mass.

The GAS Principle

Of course, you cannot take advantage of the overcompensation principle indefinitely. At some point, you will stress your body too much. GAS stands for 'General Adaptation Syndrome' and refers to the stages the body goes through when under stress: alarm, adaptation, and exhaustion. Alarm is that sore feeling you get after your very first workout or run. Adaptation is how the body improves so the next workout isn't as painful. Exhaustion, however, sets in if you keep pushing harder without giving yourself time to recover. This principle dictates why it is important to include rest into your training. I like to use a simple formula: Stress + Rest = Strength (Performance).

The Principle of Use/Disuse. How much rest to take?

It is a delicate balance, because you know that if you rest too long you may lose the gains achieved. This is due to the principle of use/disuse, which says that if you don't use a particular system, muscle, or style of training, you will eventually lose the advantages of your training. This is especially important to consider when you cycle your training, because spending a few months in the gym performing strength training can mean losing your running ability, while spending more time outside running may be detrimental to your strength gains. By understanding this principle, you will better manage different types of training and rest to produce maximum results.

The SAID Principle

The SAID principle is short for 'specific adaptation to imposed demand.' It refers to how your body responds to training. When you run long distances, your body adapts by improving your cardiovascular endurance. You may gain some strength, but long runs will not help you squat heavy weights or jump higher. Conversely, while building strength in your legs is important for a number of reasons, it will not help you improve your running unless you combine that with actual runs. You must train in a way that creates the specific results you are looking for.

These principles can be very powerful components when applied properly to training. I started this program to help athletes better understand how to integrate these principles into their training and get the best performance possible.