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Fitness Training PrinciplesPhysical Education Theory

Fitness Training Principles

In preparing your exercise programme, you need to bear in mind the following:

The individual and their requirements

Specific components of fitness

Warm up and Cool down

The individual and their requirements

First you must establish the purpose of the exercise programme. There are many reasons why an individual may wish to undertake a personal exercise programme: to lose weight, to regain fitness for competition after a lay-off because of injury, and so on.

Whatever the reason may be it will influence the nature and possibly the severity of the programme you intend to plan.

The individual and their requirements

An initial assessment may also need to be reviewed every so often in the light of progress and any change of circumstances: for example, illness or periods when commitments at work make it difficult to find time to exercise.

There are two important questions to be asked when planning a personal exercise programme.

The individual and their requirements

Is the training programme for general health and well being?

Is the training programme for a specific activity?

The answer will affect the type of programme you plan.

Specific fitness components

With regard to the content of the programme, a general exercise programme will need to address a wide range of fitness components. An activity-specific programme will need, in addition, to concentrate on those components identified as relevant.

You may decide to work on all the components of fitness but select no more than four or five of them to be part of any one exercise session.

Specific activity

Your programme might be designed to improve fitness for a specific activity. Nevertheless, it might still be advisable to ensure that an all round programme of exercise comes before more specialised work.

Example – In the case of a shot-putter, flexibility, agility and cardiovascular endurance might be addressed as part of both warm up and cool down routines so that the body can concentrate on the areas used for the event.

We can call this - event-specific components of fitness.

Specific activity

Week 1 Strength, Co-ordination, Timing.

Week 2 Muscular Endurance, Speed of Reaction.

Week 3 Strength, Co-ordination, Timing.

Fitness Components

Cardiovascular Endurance

Muscular Endurance

Strength

Flexibility

Agility

Balance

Co-ordination

Speed of Reaction

Timing

What areas relate to your chosen sport?

Warm up and Cool down

Why Warm up?

The body needs to be well prepared for physical exercise. It is not such a good idea to suddenly begin strenuous activity and expect the body’s systems to adapt instantly without injury. As part of this preparation we need to ensure the following…

Warm up and Cool down

1. Pulse rate should be gradually raised.

2. Joint flexibility should be addressed through a series of moderate stretching and mobility exercises.

3. Skills that are part of the activity can be part of your warm up.

4. Performer to become mentally focused on the activity.

Warm up and Cool down environment

Where possible the warm-up environment should resemble that of the competition.

Example – Swimmers should warm up in a practice pool, weightlifters should warm up in a weight-room.

Warm up and Cool down

Why cool down?

The purpose of the cool down is, in many respects, the exact opposite of the warm up.

The body has been working at a maximum level in competition or in training and must be allowed to return gradually to it’s normal resting rate.

Warm up and Cool down

During exercise, the heart rate is much faster than normal and blood is being pumped around the body at a higher rate. Suddenly stopping this physical activity will cause blood to pool in the bodies tissues, which effectively then has nowhere to go.

If the heart slows down too quickly, this can also slow down the removal of lactic acid from the muscle tissues and can cause muscle soreness when the body finally cools down.

Principles of Training

We need to train to improve our fitness. For steady progress and to avoid injury we should follow the SPORT principles:

Specificity

Progression

Overload

Reversibility

Tedium

Specificity

Every type of exercise has a particular effect on the body. The type of training we choose must be right for the type of improvement we want to see.

We must always use a training programme that puts regular stress on the muscle groups or body system that we want to develop.

Sprinters

Sprinters include lots of speed work in their training. This helps to develop their fast twitch muscle fibres.

Endurance Athletes

Endurance athletes need to develop their slow twitch muscle fibres. They train over longer distances for a longer time.

Games Players

Games players include both speed and endurance training into their programme, developing both types of muscle fibres.

Progression

The body takes time to adapt to more frequent or harder exercise. We must build up stress on our bodies in a gradual, or progressive way – by lifting heavier weights or running further.

What do you think will happen if we build up stress on the body too quickly or too slowly?

We will increase the risk of injury or may become disinterested or bored and give up.

Overload

Quite simply, we can only achieve improvements in most aspects of physical performance by forcing the body to work beyond it’s current known limits. In other words we overload it.

Example – to improve our aerobic fitness by running, we could run more times a week, complete the run in a shorter time or increase the distance we run. Each one of these will overload the aerobic system. The aerobic system will gradually adapt to cope with the overload and we will become fitter.

Reversibility

The process of reversibility applies to most aspects of physical performance. It means that the effects (or improvements) of training will be lost at about one third of the rate at which they were gained.

Reversibility

We lose our aerobic fitness more easily than our anaerobic fitness because our muscles quickly lose much of their ability to use oxygen.

Our anaerobic fitness is affected less by not training. If we follow a strength-training programme for 4 weeks, we will lose our gains in strength after about 12 weeks of inactivity.

Tedium

Our training programme must be varied to avoid tedium – boredom. By using a variety of different training methods we will keep our enthusiasm and motivation.

We can follow a long work out with a short one, a hard session with a relaxed one or a high speed session with a slow one.

We may be able to change the way we train and where we train.

Vary the way we train – shin splints can be avoided by running on grass rather than on hard roads.

Circuit Training is an excellent way to avoid Tedium.

Circuit Training

What Is It?Circuit training consists of a series of exercises performed sequentially.

Circuit training can include a combination of aerobic and strength exercises. An example of the mix might include jogging, jumping rope, push-ups, crunches, lunges, bench press, and squats (its for you to decide). The cycle can take anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour to complete depending on your ability.

Beginners should just walk through the motions the first time so they know what to expect.

Questions

What 3 areas should you consider when preparing a training programme?

Can you name at least 5 components of fitness?

What must you do before any physical activity?

Can you list the SPORT principles?

For homework devise a circuit training programme for your particular sport – this can include skill & fitness related exercise.