Make Your Training More Specific For Better Results

It's time to move past the constraints of the conventional model of exercise and training

The law of specificity is a principle that I think is not often applied enough to training and exercise by coaches and trainers. This often overlooked concept suggests that adaptations in muscle tissue and neurological systems are specific to the demands placed on them.

This means that it is not only necessary to tailor exercise selection to achieve desired outcomes, but that in order to optimize a specific human being’s performance, we must take the individual into account.

For years in the traditional model, the focus has been to prescribe general exercises that we know produce general outcomes to mass populations. Then we wait and see who makes it out of the other side.

This is how sports performance training has worked traditionally for years. It is a one size fits all, cookie cutter method that makes the coach’s job easier while disregarding the individual’s needs.

If we want to optimize the human being that we are or the human beings that we coach, then we have to understand specificity of tissue and neurological adaptation.

Why is Specificity important?

Specificity in training involves exercises that are deliberately chosen to match the specific demands of an individual's goals or needs. This is crucial in both tissue (muscle, connective tissue, bone) development and neurological adaptation.