Devising a PEP

There are a number of principles and types of training that should be considered when devising a training regime. The principles of training are the laws that a training schedule has to abide by to be successful. If these laws aren't followed the training schedule is very likely to become totally useless to an athlete. SPORT explains the main five principles of training, which are:

Specificity

Progression

Overload

Reversibility

Tedium

These words all apply to training in different ways, and are very important when devising a training regime for an athlete:

* Specificity means that any training that takes place should be specific to the sport that the athlete is training for. For example it wouldn't be appropriate for a tennis player to train by playing football, as it is a different sport, uses a different energy system, and different parts of the body. Specificity is aimed at all aspects of the sport from the muscles used to the energy system the sport involves. This means that to target the muscle groups present you should train by doing exercise that is similar to what you would do in your sport. For example weight training could improve power for a rugby player. To target specific energy systems you have to use the same energy system in your training as you would when undertaking the sport. For example, a footballer could train using fartlek training to target the anaerobic lactic acid system, as you run at varying speeds in football like in fartlek training

* Progression means that for improvements to keep occurring the intensity of training needs to be gradually increased. This is because if you keep training at one thing your going to adapt to that exercise and if you don't make it harder you will stay at this level and wont improve. For example, when weight training if you constantly train at one weight you will soon are able to lift it easily and won't progress past that point.

* Overload is the term used to describe training that is more strenuous than the usual physical activity undertaken by an athlete. By using overload in training you place more strain on the human biological system and this system adapts, becoming more capable of coping with this strain. Overload has a different affect on many parts of the human biological systems including the energy systems, muscles, respiration system and recovery enhancement. For example, in response to the demand of oxygen more alveoli in the lungs are utilized and there is a slight increase in lung volumes. This means the breathing system becomes more efficient.

* Reversibility explains why performance gets worse when training stops, or stops for a period of time. It has been found that by training for a long period of time you will stay at that level for a longer time than if you trained for a lesser period of time. This is because exercise regimes that begin a long time before stopping enable the body to keep the increased fitness for a long time after training stops. Shorter training regimes do increase fitness but biological adaptation doesn't really take place.

* Tedium explains that training should change over time because of both physical and psychological reasons.

Physically the effects of repeated of prolonged strain on the biological system are fatigue, depletion of energy systems, injury, soreness and muscles don't respond as easily as they should (it takes more stress to use muscles as they should).

Psychologically the effects are emotive stress because of coping with exhaustion, and lack of motivation.

When making a training schedule it's also a good idea to bare in mind the FITT regime, this stand for:

Frequency of training

Intensity of training

Time management of training

Type of training

These are all to be considered when devising a training regime and the athlete will improve more if these are considered:

* Frequency of training refers to how often the training must take place in order to get what you are aiming for. For example, to improve all-round fitness training won't have to take place as often as an athlete trying to reach their peak performance does. Also the type of activity undertaken will affect the frequency of training. For example, endurance training can take place a lot more often than anaerobic training.

* Intensity of exercise depends on the type of training occurring. This means that if you are doing anaerobic training the training will be more intense as its all about power, whereas if you are doing aerobic training the training should be less intense as you are targeting endurance at a lower level.

* Time management f training refers to the amount of time spent on each part of the training regime and how long the regime lasts for. This is changed with the intensity and type of training used. The more intense the exercise the less time will be spent on that exercise and the less long the session will last.

* Type of training refers to what exercises are used within the training regime to improve your performance in a sport. The way of choosing the type of training is by targeting what you want to improve and then choosing an exercise that will improve this muscle group or energy system etc.

One way of checking that your training regime is a right for a certain person you can use SMARTER, which stands for and means:

* Specificity - is the regime relevant to the athletes sporting needs?

* Measurable - is it possible to measure the effects of the training i.e. how much the individual is improving etc

* Accessible - are the facilities for the training readily available to the individual.

* Reversibility - has the regime been made so that the individual can remain fit and not go back to their original fitness?

* Time - do all of the elements of the regime fit in with the individuals life, and will it be long enough, of too long to reach the fitness level required.

* Exiting - will it keep the individual entertained so that they do not grow bored of the exercise and keep motivated?
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* Recorded - can all the elements of the training be recorded so that you can see how well you are doing and if you come back to it you know what to do again.

Once all of these elements of the training factors are considered you are on the way to devising a training regime. There are more specific things to consider, like body systems and muscles, however these will very much set you on your way. The next thing to look at and bare in mind when devising a training regime is the factors affecting ...

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