- The aim of this lesson is to find out about how training sessions are planned to be relative to the individual and the sport (Equivalent to UK GCSE Physical Education)
Training for your sport can be quite complex. Your training should prepare you for the event or sport, keep you interested and motivated, help you avoid injury and be suitable for you and your level of skill and fitness.
Warm-up and Cool-down
The best way of preparing for both a good training session, and competition is by warming-up. This will help you to avoid injury and prepare you physically and mentally for exercise.
- Body temperature increases and blood flow to the muscles increases, to get them ready for action. This helps prevent sprains and strains
- Warm-ups should stretch the muscles, get the joints moving and increase the range of motion. This will also help avoid injury
- Warm-ups help focus the mind on the exercise
Cool downs are often overlooked once you have finished training and after competition because the fun bit is over and you're tired! However a cool down will help your body to return back to normal more quickly and will help reduce any aches and pains the next day!
- Cool-downs help reduce the Oxygen debt and clear any lactic acid in the muscles
- It stops blood from pooling within the veins when you stop as continued gentle exercise will keep the blood pumping and muscles contracting which squeezes blood back towards the heart
Principles of Training
When we are training the type of exercise that we do must be specific to our sport and we must keep increasing the difficulty to improve:
Specificity
Training must be specific to the sport. For example there's no point in running 1500 meters in training for 100m. Training must also be specific to the athlete, by working on their weaknesses and at their level
Progression
You should gradually increase the amount of training you do. For example when you start you may only train for half an hour twice a week. You should gradually increase this amount in order to progress once your body can cope
Overload
This involves pushing your body harder than normal. In order to do this, you can increase one or a combination of the following:
- Frequency - Train more often (i.e. from twice a week to three times a week)
- Intensity - Work harder in training (i.e. lift heavier weights)
- Duration - Train for longer each session (i.e. running for a further 5 minutes each week)
Reversibility
If you have to stop training because of illness or a holiday, when you return your fitness levels will have dropped. Always start at a slightly lower level than you were at when you stopped. It takes longer to gain fitness than to lose it!
Individuality
The type of training program must be suitable for the individual. It must be designed to incorporate aspects which they enjoy to keep them motivated. It must also consider their current fitness, medical history and reasons for training. To design a good program you need to ask the following questions:
- What exercise do you like?
- How fit are you now?
- How old are you?
- Do you have any injuries or health problems?
- What sports do you play?
- What exercises do you find boring?
- Do you live near any sports facilities?
- Why do you want to get fitter?
FITT
You can also use the acronym FITT to help you design training programs:
Frequency - How often should you exercise? If you want to stay fit and healthy you should exercise at least twice a week. You also need to make sure if you are training hard, you get enough rest
Intensity - This is how hard you should work. For example, if you want to lose weight you should work at around 75% of your maximum heart rate
Time - How long are your exercise sessions going to be? Aerobic training sessions should last at least 20 minutes. If time is tight, it is better to do three 20 minute sessions a week than one 60 minute session.
Type - What type of training are you going to do? This will depend on what your aims are. Although in most cases try to vary your sessions to keep you interested.
Seasons
There are many sports which have seasons. For example soccer and athletics. The type of training you do will be affected by the time of year and where in the sporting calendar it is:
Out of season - during this time training should be mainly aerobic and strength oriented to develop a good fitness base. You should also be stocking up on carbohydrates for energy
Pre-season - In the run up to a new season, training needs to shift to incorporate more skills training and focusing on specific parts of fitness which need work
Competition - Throughout the competition phase the emphasis should be on competition, with training aimed at maintaining fitness and small adjustments to technique or tactics. You must also get enough rest
Recuperation - This stage involves a lot of rest and only light training, or even a complete change in training (a change is as good as a rest!) |
