principles of training

AS and A Level Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

Unit 3 – Training for Fitness

Principles of training

Specificity- any training undertaken should be relevant and appropriate to the sport for which the individual is training.

You should train the muscles, energy systems and skills that are specific to the sport for with you are training for. Different training methods will give types of results for different parts of the body for example, lifting weights will improve your muscular strength on your arms.

Progression- the principle of progression implies that there is an optimal level of overload that should be achieved, and an optimal time frame for this overload to occur. Overload should not be increased too slowly or improvement is unlikely.

Progression will be achieved when a good level and regular overload takes place. For example, if you don’t increase the amount of exercise or type of exercise you do you will not see any progression

Overload- overload 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. You must work your body harder than what you usually do if you want to see changes in your level ...

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For example, if you are improving your ability to run you should increase your speed, distance or time.

Reversibility- improved ranges of movement can be achieves and maintained by regular use of exercises. If an athlete stops training, his/her ranges of movement will decline over time to those maintained by his/her other physical activities. If you don’t continue with regular exercise your body will return to its original state of fitness. For example if you have a constant training plan which you carry out for 3 weeks but then after the 3 weeks you stop his programme your fitness level will decrease.

Tedium- if training sessions are boring then it will affect the athlete’s performance during training and make them not want to continue so no progression will be made. Therefore an athlete needs to do a variety of exercise in their training programme to keep it from becoming tedious.

Frequency- how often a training exercise is carried out usually per week. The frequency depends on the chosen sport. Endurance athletes should be training 4-5 times per week whereas non-endurance athletes should be training 3 days per week

Intensity- intensity may be defined as maximum level of physical effort directed to a specific activity or movement on sport.

Intensity is how hard the athlete works. You can increase the intensity by adding more weight or increasing the speed.

For example, if you are weight lifting to increase the intensity you will need to add more weights which will help to increase your strength.

Time- the length of time the athlete trains for. The suggested training time is 45 minutes this will be an affected training session without too much strain on the muscles. Short regular training is more efficient than long training session if a training session is too long then too much strain can be put upon the muscles and injury can occur.

Type- this shows the type of training the athlete will carry out. Different types of training will affect the body in different ways. Depending on what sport the athlete is training for they will need to different types of training to improve on specific areas that is required for the sport the athlete had chosen. For example a swimmer will need to do a different type of training to a footballer.