Said Principal For Fitness and Self Defense

The Said principle is one of the most basic, yet mostyou would not get any stronger. The body would not
important and fundamental of all exercise principles.recognize this as being any harder then what its been
The S.A.I.D principle is an acronym for Specificexpected to do for the last several weeks, so it would
Adaptation to Imposed Demands.need to grow. Your body would have adapted to the
What this means in a nutshell, is that in order todemands you have imposed upon it.
improve on any specific skill or physical attribute, youWithout sufficient stress your body will not adapt. The
must specifically train that skill or attribute. If you wantother side of the coin is also true. If you impose to
to be a better kick-boxer, don't take up paintball. Yesmuch stress upon the body you are likely to make
paintball requires endurance, fast evasive skills andgreat progress for a short time and then, when your
agility but it wont make you better at punching hard orbody can no longer keep up, you will suffer an injury.
accurately. It wont make you better at taking punchesThis is a big price to pay for the improvement you
or evading them either.made in the beginning. Injuries can last days, weeks,
For example Tai Boxers need incredibly tough andmonths or even permanently.
resilient shin bones for kicking. They condition them bySo if you want to get stronger. Lift heavier weights.
kicking things and striking their shin bones with objectsWant to run faster? Practice sprints and intervals. If
to slowly build the density and strength of these bones.you want to improve your combat skills practice
Over time the shin bones adapt to this demand thatcombat drills.
you have imposed upon them. Once they adapt, youA simple rule of thumb to follow is whenever you train,
must change things up by increasing the imposedalways try to push yourself a little beyond your prior
demand or they will stop adapting and stop gettinglimit. Just a bit further than you went before. With
stronger.proper nutrition and consistency you will continue to
If you were to perform the same exercise, lets saymake consistent improvements for a very long time.
bench press with the same weight of 200lb for theThen when you finally reach your plateau, its time to
same 8 reps, the same 4 sets for weeks, over timechange something up.
you would become very good at doing just that, but