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All things running, physical therapy, strength training, mobility, and education!
Welcome to the Return 2 Sport PT blog. Here, we share insights and tips to improve your movement quality, alleviate pain and dysfunction, and equip you with the knowledge to maintain a pain-free and active lifestyle for the long haul.
Realized Gains vs. Unrealized Gains
When we are talking about realized vs unrealized gains, what we mean is that the stress you accumulate through workouts and races takes time to be "realized" and for your body to absorb and utilize the adaptations.
Unrealized gains are when the training has been done but you are still in the window of adaptations, usually for 1 to 3 weeks depending on the stimulus.
Realized gains are the actual physiological improvements that are made after the unrealized window leading to real world improvements in running times, lower HR at same paces, and PR's.
Why does it matter?
Training load.
When you stack too much high intensity work inside the window of unrealized gains there is a higher likelihood that the quality of the workout will be diminished and the degree of gains you can make are less.
For example, doing a 10x400m track session on Tuesday followed by a 1 hr threshold session on Thursday and then a 2 hr long run at marathon pace is a lot of stress to pack into 5 days.That is a lot of running in higher zones and will not only lead to too much mechanical stress, but will cause the 2nd and 3rd workouts to become either too hard or way less effective.
Structuring workouts in an approach so that they can be done at 100% correct dose effort ensures that you are maximizing the adaptations. By 100%, we don't mean all out however. Hitting the correct paces or HR for the designed workout would describe a 100% home run workout.
If you feel tired all the time, can't hit the paces steadily in your workouts, or find yourself fading in long runs, this change may help you. If you are struggling and need help, we work with athletes like you all the time to ensure proper training load and get you to a place where you can not only maximize your workouts, but see the real world improvements in pace, HR, and PR's.
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We also provide:
Dr. Dylan Glass, PT, DPT, SMTC
Dr. Josh Cornett PT, DPT, COMT, CDNT
Return 2 Sport PT
256-513-9525
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