Mastering the Balance: Load Management

The human body is remarkable at adapting to all sorts of environments and conditions. This adaptability is why people can achieve incredible feats like running marathons or climbing mountains, pushing their bodies to their limits. However, these accomplishments don’t happen overnight. Attempting a marathon without training, for instance, would likely lead to injury or significant discomfort because your body hasn’t been prepared for the load or demand.

Load management is the strategy of progressively challenging your body, giving it the chance to adapt and handle increased demands in the future

What Is Load?

Load refers to the physical demands placed on your body and varies for each individual. Examples include:

• Running: Total miles covered.
  
  

• Strength Training: Volume (sets x reps x weight).
  
  

• Daily Activity: Total active minutes in your day.
  
  

The first step in load management is tracking your load. Over about four weeks, you’ll establish your chronic load—the amount of exercise or physical activity you’ve consistently done during that time. This represents the baseline your body can comfortably handle, as long as you’re not currently injured.

From there, you’ll monitor your acute load, which is the amount of physical activity you’ve done in the past week. Comparing acute and chronic loads provides critical insights into your training patterns.

Why Monitor Load?

The following examples demonstrate how monitoring and managing your load can guide smarter training decisions: