No matter what level of participant, beginner, club athlete or elite, you should always aim to monitor your progress. So before you start any exercise regime, the more information you gain at the start, then the better you can do this later. So it always worth having a thorough medical, and take a few baseline measurements in the sport you wish to compete, which can act as performance indicators for the season. Ideally this should be repeated every three to four months, though can be costly if paying yourself.
With regards to the program, whoever designs it should:
- know the athlete
- know the sport
- know the persons goals (i.e. recreational to elite).
All training programs should ideally be reviewed / updated every 6-8 weeks, and always incorporate a ‘rest week’ during this to allow for supercompensation (improvement).
Training programmes can be a fine a balancing act, especially when have a specific target in mind. Train too little and you won’t achieve your goal, or train too hard and pick up an injury which sets you back. Knowing when and how to progress a program can be a bit of a minefield.
The aim of any training regime is to apply a series of stimuli that will displace the homeostasis of an individual’s functional systems, and therefore provide the stimulus for adaptation. Viru, A. (1984).
Improving fitness is all about getting the right balance between training and rest, the term for this is the ‘Overload Principle’:
This states that a greater than normal stress or load on the body is required for training adaptation to take place. The body will adapt to this stimulus. Once the body has adapted then a different stimulus is required to continue the change. In order for a muscle (including the heart) to increase strength, it must be gradually stressed by working against a load greater than it is used to. To increase endurance, muscles must work for a longer period of time than they are used to. If this stress is removed or decreased there will be a decrease in that particular component of fitness. A normal amount of exercise will maintain the current fitness level.
Simply stated if you do not achieve “OVERLOAD” during your workout you will not improve.
The best way to achieve this is by constantly monitoring your performance capacity and adjusting it accordingly. If deterioration in performance is indicated, then you need to reduce either the frequency and / or the intensity of training, rest is the best recovery.
The easiest way of controlling overload is by using the acronym ‘F I T T ‘
This will predominantly be decided by someone’s work and other commitments, and how much ‘free’ time they can realistically dedicate to training each week. More frequent the training program the greater will be the fitness benefits, particularly true with respect to any sport requiring endurance training.
This is the most important of the factors, as sets the tone of the whole workout. For cardiovascular exercise intensity is proportional to maximal aerobic power. It is most easily monitored using a heart rate monitor, as is directly proportional to the degree of overload.
For strength training this will be governed by the amount of weight lifted, which in turn will be decided upon by your repetition target (see part 3).
As already stated in previously, quality is far more important than quantity. To help achieve this, preparation can help eliminate a lot of time wasting. Also what you are training for, and the intensity you are training at will also dictate the length of your training sessions. Train don’t strain.
This refers to the method of your training. In cardiovascular examples are; interval, fartlek or long slow duration, in strength training you may employ pyramid, supersets or compound sets.
The purpose of a training program is to:
– Reorganise/ improve the major energy system used in the activity
– Via the overload principle, construct a program to develop that particular energy system
All programs must be specific to developing the energy system predominantly used during performance of the athletes chosen sport. Rega