Summa Anabolic Mapping is an advanced data visualization technique that provides novel insight into individual physiological recovery, growth, and stress response. By serially mapping single-day anabolism (as measured in ratio of testosterone to cortisol) against the day’s loading (physical strain), we can observe daily performance capacity and truly understand the body's response to training loads.
Understanding the Summa Anabolic Map
In the Summa Anabolic Map, dotted lines (forming a crosshair) represent the individual's normal (average) levels of loading and anabolism. Above the dotted line, the individual has higher than average anabolism, and on the right side of the dotted line the individual has higher than average training load. Based on the body's anabolic responses to training loads we can identify four distinctive areas in the map:
- Green – Peak Performance Quadrant
- Pink – Hard Training Quadrant
- Gray – Fatigue Quadrant
- Yellow – Recovery Quadrant
The Four Quadrants Explained
Green: Peak Performance Quadrant
In this quadrant, training load increases while anabolism remains high. This is the most valued state for high performance athletes, indicating a high-performance capability that should be timed to take place during competition days.
Yellow: Recovery Quadrant
In this quadrant, there has been a decrease in training load in the form of active recovery or rest. As training stress decreases, anabolism has recovered to above-normal values, indicating effective recovery.
Gray: Fatigue Quadrant
In this quadrant anabolism is subdued despite decreased training load. The cumulative stress from several days of hard training has resulted in catabolism and delayed recovery.
Pink: Hard Training Quadrant
In this quadrant, above-average heavy load is compromising anabolism, which decreases below average. This is a prevalent state for athletes during heavy training blocks.
Interpreting Changes in the Summa Anabolic Map
Daily hormone and load values are inputted in chronological order, creating a chronological visual path which enables the observation of an individual's development over time.
The direction of movement in the Summa anabolic map provides insights into the trend and development in individual's physiological state:
- Moving Up: Increase in anabolism.
- Moving Down: Decrease in anabolism.
- Moving Diagonally Up-Right: Increase in readiness and performance capacity.
- Moving Diagonally Down-Left: Decrease in performance and recovery capacity.
- Moving Diagonally from Down-Right to Up-Left: Decrease in loading and positive recovery in anabolism.
Path to Peak Performance
The Map instance below presents a successful path to optimal anabolism over the last 10 days of preparation before a competition event. The first six days involve hard training with low anabolism and short recovery periods. Peak performance is achieved when the athlete allows for sufficient rest after day six. Typically, the path to peak performance includes 2-4 days in the Recovery Quadrant.
Analyzing the daily shifts provide added information. A positive response to recovery can be seen between days 6 and 7, as the anabolism is rapidly increasing (indicated by the orange arrow). A reverse phenomenon is seen between days 5 and 6, where only a moderate increase in load results in a substantial drop in anabolism (indicated by the red arrow. Days 7-10 display a positive response to rest, resulting in peak performance capability in day 10, the competition day (indicated by the green arrow).
Case example: Top Athlete Training Path
This example shows a top athlete's training path, indicating changes in bodily homeostasis. After a rapid peaking from the borderline of the gray box (indicated by a green arrow), the athlete experiences two days of high anabolism with moderate loading. Increasing the training load further moves the athlete into the pink box with reduced anabolism, indicated by a red arrow. Both changes are significant, with personal maximum changes indicated as 100 or -100/100, and the speed of change marked by efficacy levels of 9.7 and -9.9/10, respectively.
Benefits
Summa Anabolic Mapping is currently in active use with Summa’s professional athletic partners. It offers a much more tangible way of visualizing the dynamic relation between daily load and anabolic hormonal response than a standard data timeline.
Debriefing athletes with the help of Anabolic Mapping is often an eye-opener, as it strongly enriches the explanatory power of athletes’ training notebooks and perceived observations on their performance capacity.
With the help of Summa Anabolic Mapping, athletes, coaches and other individuals can manage and individualize their training programs to achieve peak performance on specific dates, prevent overtraining, analyze their quality of rest, and more. The personal routes to peak performance are repeatable – the individual route to the peak performance can be perfected during the preparatory phase and then executed prior to real competition.