Planning
The principles of training that are outlined below should be followed to allow your training to progress. These should be applied to every, and all, forms of training that you undertake.
Overload:
This principle states that training programs should stress the players' physiological mechanisms enough to cause an improvement. This means that working on the same programme for a long time will not cause you to improve. Therefore, training status will be improved by gradually increasing the load that your body is working against. This can be achieved by either progressively altering:
- The intensity (how hard you work) of the session: The number of repetitions that you do, the work time, the rest time, the mass lifted, etc.
- The volume (how much work you do) of the session: How many exercises or sets you do
- The frequency of training: How many sessions per week that you do.
Progression:
This is a continuation of the overload principle. As the bodies physiological mechanisms adapt to your training, there is a need for the training to be advanced, otherwise you will remain at a training plateau and not respond to further training efforts.
This progression has to be gradual in nature however, so as to prevent you becoming injured by over-exerting yourself, and possibly demotivated to further training because you are not achieving the training targets.
Specificity:
All training routines need to be tailored to the specific demands of the sport, and the position being trained for, and the individual needs of the athlete, so as to maximise the competitive advantage. This is very important, as inappropriate training is a waste of time and resources, and can be detrimental to performance.
Recovery:
Physical training only provides the stimulus for strength development. The recovery period is the time when the bodies' physiological mechanisms for improvement are implemented. Insufficient recovery time will lead to the body becoming overtrained. This will lead to poor performance and an increased risk of injury. If the recovery period is over-sufficient, then the training effect will be lost.
Indeed, it is important that everyone realises that training / playing only provides a stimulus for improvement: It is only through rest that the body can actually improve. This can be explained diagrammatically by a theoretical model of the overcompensation cycle:
Therefore, if you allow sufficient recovery time for each physiological component(s) (for example muscles, aerobic / anaerobic system, joint structures) that was trained in a session (or sufficient recovery time from a game, which stresses all the bodies systems) to recover, you will find your capabilities are enhanced.
Conversely, if you train too soon, you will not allow your body to recover sufficiently, and the next session will commence from a fatigued state. If this pattern continues, the result will be a state of overtraining and burnout.
Reversibility:
The "use it or lose it" phenomenon. The training gains achieved will be lost if the training load is removed. Therefore you need to plan and control training schedules (i.e. if you are going on holiday, or when injured) so that a sufficient level of general activity is maintained to prevent detraining (reversibility) occurring.
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