Improving Performance: Work and Sport C H A P T E R 14 Improving Performance: Work and Sport Chapter 14

Objectives This chapter will help you do the following: Use the principles of training Improve performance in your favorite sport Use diet to enhance performance Develop psychological skills to help you play your best game more often

Training Principles You should follow 15 principles to make steady progress in your training and avoid illness and injury. Principles are based on research studies and the insights of successful coaches.

Principle 1: Readiness Value of training depends on the physiological and psychological readiness of the individual. Goals clearly defined Prioritizing time for training Discipline to get adequate rest

Principle 2: Health Athletes need to be healthy when they train. Appropriate periodization, rest, and recovery Additional factors include the following: Good nutrition Sufficient sleep Good hygiene Pay attention to what your body is telling you and adjust training appropriately.

Principle 3: Individual Response People respond differently to the same training Heredity Maturity Nutrition Rest Sleep Level of fitness Environmental factors Illness or injury Motivation

Principle 4: Overload Training must place a demand on the body system if desired adaptations are to take place. Training must exceed the typical daily demand. If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.

Principle 5: Adaptation Training induces subtle changes as the body adapts to the added demands. The principle of adaptation tells us that we can’t rush training. The day-to-day changes are so small as to be immeasurable; weeks and even months of patient progress are required to achieve measurable adaptations.

Principle 6: Progression Observe progression in terms of FIT: Frequency (increases in sessions per day, week, month, or year) Intensity (training load per day, week, month, or year) Time (duration of training in hours per day, week, month, or year)

Principle 7: Periodization The process of planning systematic variation into training At several levels: daily, weekly, seasonal, and career

Principle 8: Long-Term Training Allows for growth and development, gradual progress, acquisition of skills, learning of strategies, and fuller understanding of the sport. Excellence comes to those who persist with an enjoyable, well-planned, long-term training program.

Principle 9: Specificity Exercise is specific. When you train, adaptations will take place in the muscle fibers used during the exercise. Specific training brings specific results. Specificity does not mean that you should avoid training opposite or adjacent muscles.

Principle 10: Rest and Recovery The essence of this principle is that athletes need to listen to their body and adjust their daily training to what they are feeling. It is during recovery when adaptations occur.

Principle 11: Variation Vary your training program to avoid boredom and to maintain your interest. When workouts become dull, do something different. Failure to include variation leads to boredom, staleness, and poor performance.

Principle 12: Warm-Up and Cool-Down A warm-up should always precede strenuous activity to increase body temperature, increase respiration and heart rate, and guard against muscle, tendon, and ligament strains. The cool-down is just as important as the warm-up. Abrupt cessation of vigorous activity leads to pooling of the blood, sluggish circulation, and slow removal of waste products.

Principle 13: Maintenance It is possible to reach a performance goal and wish to stay at that level of training for a period of time. When athletes peak, they are able to maintain that fitness level for only a few days or weeks.

Principle 14: Reversibility The adaptations achieved from months of hard training are reversible. It takes longer to gain endurance than it does to lose it. On complete bed rest, fitness can decline at a rate of almost 10 percent per week.

Principle 15: Moderation Moderation applies to all aspects of life. Too much of anything can be bad for your health. Elite athletes vary their training, taking easy days between hard training sessions.

Training Fallacies Fallacy 1: No pain, no gain. Fallacy 2: You must break down muscle to improve. Fallacy 3: Go for the burn. Fallacy 4: Lactic acid causes muscle soreness. Fallacy 5: Muscle turns to fat (or vice versa). Fallacy 6: You can run out of wind.

Four-Step Plan to Develop a Successful Training Program Goal setting Provide a destination: A destination gives direction, drive, and motivation. Needs analysis Know where you are, where you want to go, and how you can get there. Plan and periodize the program Look at the long-term picture first and then determine how to periodize your year, then each month, and finally week. Monitor the progress and health of your athletes. Most important concerns of training are to maintain health and to recover adequately.

Periodizing Your Training Program To tailor a training program suited to your needs, you first must know the energy sources required in the activity. See figure 14.1 in your textbook. (continued)

Periodizing Your Training Program (continued) Interval training and training intensity Easy aerobic training Endurance athletes may spend upwards of 90 percent of their total training time doing this type of training. Race pace-plus intervals Race pace-plus intervals are always adjusted to your current performance speed. Doing intervals slightly faster than current race speed, you will be training both the appropriate energy system and learning the neuromuscular coordination to move slightly faster. Maximal Intervals These are maximal efforts for short periods.

Figure 14.3 Periodizing Year-Round Energy Fitness Training

Figure 14.4 Periodizing Year-Round Muscular Fitness Training

Annual Periodization Off-season period This is the time of recovery from the previous competitive season and will include nonspecific, nonstructured activities done at a low intensity with duration dependent on the motivation of each individual athlete. (continued)

Annual Periodization (continued) Basic training period Focus of this period is to build a strength and energy fitness foundation to support the higher intensity work that will be done as the competition season approaches. Basic training period lasts a minimum of 8 weeks and as long as 5 months in order to optimize muscle recruitment for strength and lay an adequate foundation for aerobic energy. (continued)

Annual Periodization (continued) Precompetition period The transition from basic training to competition Lasts 6 to 8 weeks for school sports and 12 to 14 weeks for year-round programs (continued)

Annual Periodization (continued) Early competition period More time will be spent on technique and tactics Generally lasts 4 to 5 weeks for school sports and as long as 10 weeks for year-long programs (continued)

Annual Periodization (continued) Peak performance period 1 to 2 weeks leading to the most important event, athletes may taper their training in an effort to peak for an important event. Effective tapers gradually reduce training volume and stress by 40 to 60 percent. Peaking can improve performance by 2 to 4 percent.

Figure 14.5 Weekly Periodization

Daily Periodization Vary the physical stress of the training days. Vary the overall stress of the training days so that you seldom have more than 3 high-stress days in a row without allowing an easier day for recovery. Endurance days, even if the pace is slow, may be stressful if the duration is long.

Psychology of Performance Competitors and performers Play your best game Relax. Contract and then relax your muscles and say “Let go” as you learn muscle relaxation Concentrate. Focus your attention on an object in the game to free the mind of fears and negative judgments and to allow your best performance. Mentally rehearse and physically rehearse.

Overtraining Recognize the symptoms of overreaching and beginning to move toward overtraining. Symptoms include lethargy, fatigue, poor performance, sleep loss, loss of appetite, and illness. Symptoms arise slowly. Overtraining is difficult to diagnose.

Figure 14.6 Overtraining Detection

Summary Chapter 14 presented a simple approach to the development of a year-round training program that provides for the systematic development of aerobic and anaerobic energy sources and for muscular strength, endurance, and power. For more detailed information on training and programming, consult Sport Physiology for Coaches (Sharkey and Gaskill 2006).