Fat Loss Fitness Programming: Understanding Acute vs. Chronic Adaptations
In the world of fitness, understanding the difference between acute and chronic adaptations is essential, especially when it comes to programming fat loss for clients. The stress from a single workout can lead to an acute response, while regularly creating that acute response can trigger chronic changes. Repeated acute adaptations can lead to long-term training adaptations.
However, improper planning can yield haphazard results. If the stress and stimuli are too random or not done for a long enough period of time, it will ultimately impact the chronic adaptations a person is training for. This is why trainers need to develop a better understanding of response and adaptation to acute and chronic stress to achieve long-term results with their clients.
When it comes to fat loss, it’s important to think about what causes the switch to burn a higher percentage of fat over glucose over the course of the day. To stimulate lipolysis, we must have low levels of insulin and stimulate the hormones that elicit more HSL activity. Growth hormone and adrenaline are the key hormones that stimulate HSL and blunt its antagonist, LPL.
If we want to train for more effective fat loss results, we have some critical thinking questions to consider. (As we always do as personal trainers)
- Can we regularly stimulate lipolysis through exercise?
- Can we trigger elevated levels of lipolysis for days after the workout?
- Can we shift the respiratory exchange ratio through exercise, allowing higher amounts of fat and less glucose to be used for fuel during recovery?
- Can we increase the overall amount of total energy being burned post-workout significantly, and for how long and is it associated with a shift in respiratory exchange ratio? (Can we make more of the elevated metabolism come from fat and less from glucose?)
- Can we train in a way that gets the body to preferably store incoming food in the liver and muscle tissue, rather than as bodyfat?
- And are all exercises, programs, and methods created equal at achieving these things?
- If so, what programming methods are superior at creating an acute response that favors elevated lipolysis, a shift in respiratory exchange ratio, an elevation of overall energy burned, and a preference to store incoming food in the muscle cells rather than in fat cells…all of which can take place for days even after the workout is finished?
To achieve these desired stimuli, it’s essential to understand that training for more fat utilization is an acute adaptation. If you spend your time programming for the particular outcomes listed above, your clients will get better results.
Their family, friends and colleagues will see it, ask them what they are doing…and ultimately get your phone number or email and contact you!
Chronic adaptations will, of course, happen over time, but most trainers completely ignoring (or completely unaware) of training for the acute adaptation, where they have more control over the metabolic regulation of their client.
Most trainers spend too much time on mobility, rehabbing future injuries that don’t exist and barbell strength work with an overly obsessive approach toward progressive overload, all which take time away from time that could be spent achieving the stimuli for better fat loss results. This causes them to rely too much on their client being perfect with their nutrition. Good luck with that!
Therefore, understanding the importance of acute adaptations for fat loss is crucial. Trainers need to understand the exercises, methods, techniques and protocols that best fit the desired stimuli and focus on the acute adaptations, which will give them faster results and then trigger the long-term training adaptations, giving them sustainability.
In a future post, we will discuss some of the big mistakes trainers make that hold them back from achieving fat loss results.
Jeff Andora is owner of Flash Fitness in Bangkok and has been a fitness trainer for 27 years.
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Thank you! I hope you are well, my friend!