reversibility occurs when physical training is stopped (detraining), the body readjusts in accordance with the diminished physiological demand, and the beneficial adaptations may be lost. Mujika & Padilla (2001) Sports Exerc. 333: 1297–1303.

In order to get the maximum out of your training you need to apply the four key principles of training – specificity, progression, overload and individualisation – to what you do.

Tips to Overcome reversibility.

1. After an extended rest from exercise, start back off slowly.
2. Resume your training with greater volume as opposed to higher intensity.
3. Focus on improving your flexibility.
4. Avoid maximum attempts with your weight lifting.

When you decondition, your heart gradually loses its ability to handle extra blood flow — up to five percent in 24 hours — and your resting heart rate increases by four to 15 beats within three to four weeks before it plateaus.

Reversibility – any adaptation that takes place as a result of training will be reversed when you stop training. If you take a break or don’t train often enough you will lose fitness.

How much fitness loss? The biggest worry when training sessions are lost for whatever reason is ‘detraining’ – losing fitness. This happens because of a key principle in exercise physiology called ‘reversibility’: gains in fitness occurring as a result of training are steadily lost once training ceases.

The Reversibility Principle in Sports Training

1. Reversibility means that an athlete can lose the effects of training when they stop, and can gain the effects when they begin to train again.
2. Detraining occurs within a relatively short time period after an athlete ceases to train.

The Specificity Principle is a principle that states that exercising a certain body part, component of the body, or particular skill primarily develops that part or skill.

The principle of specificity derives from the observation that the adaptation of the body or change in physical fitness is specific to the type of training undertaken. Quite simply this means that if a fitness objective is to increase flexibility, then flexibility training must…

Specificity states that the body makes gains from exercise according to how the body exercises. This principle is important because applying it correctly will allow one to have a focused, efficient, effective program that will lead to the desired gains.