There are many governmental agencies that support young athletes, for example Sport England. Which aims to increase the development of sport in England by influencing and serving the public,
The millennium youth games, which is funded by the government, is to encourage young athletes to compete in a large number and too boost confidence and also provision.
The UKSI also helps encourage sport excellence for potential UK elite athletes.
A good training programme has to be arranged around the athlete’s psychological state.
An individual’s genetic make up especially personality is what gives them the drive to perform and continue training. For example motivation, mood, ability, and self-efficacy are all major parts of personality and all affect long-term preparation.
Increased stress and anxiety can affect an athlete’s performance and they then begin to struggle in their sport.
Stress increases heart rate, which can decrease the chance of a good performance. Anxiety can affect concentration during a performance and therefore the athlete not performing to its personal best due to worrying about the outcome of the situation.
Anxiety includes state and trait dimensions. An athlete with high anxiety trait (A-trait) is likely to be more anxious in stressful situations. According to the Drive Theory (Clark Hull 1943) if an athlete is appropriately skilled then it will help them to perform well if their drive to compete is aroused
Another way to the Drive Theory can be known as the Inverted-U hypothesis this can predicts a relationship between arousal and performance and is developed in to an inverted U shape. This is believed to show that as arousal is increased the athlete’s performance improves. The problem with this theory is that if the athletes arousal is increased beyond the top of the Inverted U the athlete’s performance decreases.
Physiological factors also contribute to a athletes performance these include diet and nutrition, for example if a athlete does not eat appropriately then this will affect their performance. So an endurance athlete will have different diet to a sprinter, e.g. endurance athlete high in carbohydrate for high production of energy and a sprinted a high protein diet to help the formation of muscle tissue.
Some athletes are born with an innate ability- for example born with fast twitch muscle fibres.
Following appropriate training methods also should be considered if wanting to plan a good training programme. Some of which are the FITT principle and the SPORT principle.
Fitness testing is defiantly needed so the athlete has a fitness programme that is suited to their needs and if you are too see any improvement in performance I believe this has to be planned early so the actually programme can be devised appropriately to the athletes weaknesses and to also be structured in a good manner to prevent boredom and also injury. Goals also should to be set to allow the performer to have the drive to reach them.
As long as all these factors are taken into account and are analysed appropriately they all can contribute to make a good programme I believe that all these factors should be taken into account if the programme is to be a success and improve the athlete’s performance.
