Fitness: Don’t be afraid to mix up your exercise routines – Montreal Gazette

If a marathon runner, a soccer player and a weightlifter stood side by side, you’d see three very different-looking athletes — from the outside. But is that difference also reflected in their physiology? Do the unique demands of each sport transform the heart, lungs and muscles into sport-specific machines?

It has been said that physiology dictates sport. Or to put it another way, body type determines the ability to excel at a given activity. Endurance athletes — runners, swimmers, paddlers and cyclists — have high aerobic capacity along with muscles built for repetition, not short bursts of power and speed. Power athletes — decathletes, football players, sprinters and weightlifters — are built to lift, throw, push, grapple, sprint and jump, all movements that require a combination of force and speed but in short, intense bursts. Team sports — soccer, hockey, basketball, baseball and water polo — require a combination of endurance and power as well as agility.

Most athletes are encouraged to stay in their own lane. Marathoners aren’t built for power, and power athletes aren’t built for endurance. But there are some athletes who challenge that thinking. Decathletes, like Canada’s Damian Warner, have the power to throw, jump and sprint and the endurance to complete a 1,500-metre race — a distance more than 10 times longer than the average sprint.

The theory of specificity states that training should closely resemble the type, intensity and duration of the sport for which the athlete is competing. That’s why sprinters rarely run any longer than it takes to warm up and why weightlifters avoid the treadmill the same way marathoners steer clear of the bench press.

That said, marathon runners have been known to benefit from additional power and power athletes from better endurance, which suggests taking a closer look at the strengths and weaknesses of elite and recreational athletes.

A team of scientists gathered a large selection of Lithuanian athletes and put them through a series of physical challenges designed to measure their speed, power, endurance and agility. The athletes included distance runners, swimmers, cyclists, pentathletes, triathletes, boxers, bodybuilders, basketball, soccer, volleyball and badminton players, fitness enthusiasts, walkers, throwers, track-and-field athletes and divers — all of whom trained from three to 14 times a week. Also included in the group were non-athletes.

Most of the test results weren’t all that surprising. Endurance athletes had the lowest body mass index, and power athletes and non-athletes had the highest BMI. Team athletes were taller than the other athletes, but their BMI closely resembled the non-athletes in the group. Measures of aerobic power (the speed and volume of oxygen delivered to the working muscles) were highest in endurance athletes and team sport athletes and lowest in power athletes. Jumping power was highest among team and power athletes and lowest in endurance athletes.

The real surprise to come out of this study was the results of the team sport athletes. Their aerobic power was similar to the endurance athletes and their muscular power similar to power athletes. This seems to contradict the idea that the best results come from sport-specific training. It also questions the commonly held theory that getting stronger will compromise aerobic power and improving aerobic power will have a negative effect on muscular power.

“This suggests that adding heavy resistance/plyometric and endurance training components to endurance and power athletes does not diminish their endurance or power performance, respectively,” said lead researcher Hans Degens of Lithuania.

In other words, there’s nothing stopping exercisers from having it all. Strong, powerful muscles that can go the distance are assets to any athlete — elite or recreational. It’s also a reminder that there’s a ceiling to the adaptations made to the heart and muscles through exercise, which means challenging those same muscles, including the heart, the same way day after day doesn’t always result in getting faster, stronger or going longer — a concept team sport athletes clearly understand.

Some athletes discovered the benefits of mixing up their training more by accident than design. Injuries often force people to change up their exercise routine, which ends up producing results beyond the expected. Runners who took to the weight room to build up strength in weakened muscles end up gaining speed when they return to full form. And power athletes who improve their endurance may find themselves recovering quicker after a tough workout in the weight room.

Bottom line for anyone who has performance goals in a specific sport or activity is that the theory of specificity is overrated in all but the most elite of athletes — many of whom are gifted with a physiology born of genetics, not just of time spent in the gym. It’s also a message especially important for young athletes to hear. So don’t be shy to step out of your lane and mix it up a bit. You may be surprised at the results.