Improving Performance - Options 4

High-intensity, intermittent bouts of exercise, performed in the absence of oxygen such as weight training; plyometric drills; and short interval training.

The combination of velocity and strenght, it is the rate at which forced is used per unit of time

 Developing power through resistance/weight training
 Plyometrics
 Short interval

- The speed at which movement is completed is the most important
- High intensities, shorter rest
EG: Running with a parachute

- Very high intensities
- Longer rest periods
- Lower work volumes
- Fast bar speed = increased velocity = power+speed
EG: Running with a weight sled

Method of anaerobic training that utilises the stretch-shortening cycle to exert force in short fast intervals, enhancing force and velocity

Active muscle lengthening followed by active muscle shortening. This must be performed as fast as possible for speed and power.

An anaerobic training method involving alternating short bursts of intense activity followed by periods of rest and recovery to help the muscles tolerate lactic acid accumulation while working and enable ATP store restoration while at rest.

Improve the anaerobic systems through short, high intensity work intervals, followed by longer periods of recovery.

- Improved recovery and waste removal ability
- Increases speed and power
- Improved anaerobic capacity and lactate threshold

- Testing such as lactate threshold testing which shows improvements in an athletes waste removal ability.
- Increases in the circumferance of muscles will provide information on muscle hypertrophy
- Increases in 1rm weights will provide measures for strength gains

Testing for measuring speed and power are often sport specific and can be conducted within a labratory

- The development of proper technique and form
- Adequate rest between sets and recovery periods between trainings
- Adequate warm up and cool downs
- Medical clearance before starting training programs

- improper technique and form
- Inadequate rest between sets and recovery periods between trainings (not managing a players training loads)
- Inadequate warm up and cool down
- Overtraining (begginning a session with high intensity work)
- No use of protective equipment (mouthguards, headgear)

Anaerobic training is one of the more dangerous forms of training, especially plyometrics and power weight training.

This is due not just to the high intensities, but the high force and high velocity movements. These place large amounts of stress on the body and minor mistakes can cause serious injuries.

The training of the fundamental components of games. Once learnt, skills are practiced in drills, small sided and modified games and other games for specific outcomes.

Improves fundamental skills, game understanding, decision making, communication and performing under pressure

Through the use of training methods that replicate the specific sport and are tailored to the individuals skill level. These include; Drills, Small sided and modified games and other games for specific outcomes eg: training under pressure

The fundamental core of all skill training. Drills provide the frequent repetition of a skill that is required for an athlete to progress through stages of skill aquisition.

Drills are sport specific and in accordance to the ability of the athlete. The practice methods of drill vary depending on the focus area, complexity of skill or ability of learner.

Eg: Part or distrubuted practice methods are used in drills for associative and cognitive athletes.

Modified Games - Replicate the sport but alter some of the rules to increase an athletes need for a certain skill, developing that particular skill.

Short-Sided Games - Replicate the sport and increase an athletes exposure to a skill execution, developing an athletes performance.

Games in training replicate competition day, therefore increasing an athletes familiarity with game-day scenarios. This can improve decision making processes and tactics

Games for specifc outcomes allow an athlete to become exposed to specific scenario, onsetting decision making processes

Eg: A two touch limit in football encourages players to know what they are going to do with the ball before they recieve it.

Tactical awareness can be developed in games for specific outcomes as the training focusses on the correct utilisation of a skill rather than merely execution.

EG: Set pieces in football requires players to have a tactical understanding of when to play short, long or shoot.

- Statistical analysis provides feedback on improvements in skill execution, for example an improved completed passes or shooting percentage reveals greater accuracy of shot/pass.
- Biomechanical analysis
- Video analysis such as a midfielder reviewing how many scans/headchecks he completed in his game

- Performance and fitness needs (individual, team)
- Schedule of events/competitions
- Climate and season

Performance and fitness needs considered when planning for improved performance are both sport and athlete specific.

They are sport specific because the components of fitness should be relevant to the sport, and the performance requirements.

They must be athlete specific so that each individual athlete improves for their specific role in competition and meet their own specific goals

Elite: Individual Level
- Highly developed level of fitness
- Complete a wider range of fitness and performance tests
Elite: Team Level
- Allocation of leadership, coaching staff and support roles
- Highly specific tactics, playstyle and well established goals

Amateur: Individual Level
- Basic level of fitness
- Limited level of game intelligence
Amateur: Team Level
- Socialelationship focus
- Basic team organisation and training
- General understanding of team goals and structure

- Planning must address the competition period to ensure that players are fit / game ready and strategies/tactics are throroughly in place.
- Weekly competition based sports, require players to peak regularly and be prepared for frequent trainings.
- Over time, players should strive to peak and be at their best in times with finals.

Elite Athletes will have:
- Complex training and match schedules
- Various time commitments (travel, gym, recovery)
- Must effectively manage illness and injury
- Greater emphasis on peaking/tapering

Amateur Athletes will have:
- Less extreme work schedule with greater flexibility
- Less travel
- Greater emphasis on work/life balance
- Greater freedom (training is not compuslory)

Initial planning considerations need to consider seasonal variations along with climatic influences as these will determine the type of environmental conditions in which the sport will be played and thus how and what the athlete must prepare for.

- Extremely cold temperatures in training may require athletes to be provided with gloves and other warm garments to mitigate the cold and prevent illness, injury or any temperature related conditions from occuring.

Elite:
- Larger variations in climate due to frequent travel
- Greater consideration for athlete safety and needs when experincing adverse conditions (injury, illness, dehydration)

Amateur:
- Generally more stable and consistent climate and season due to limited to no travel
- Less consideration of climates impact on players and decreased participation due to climate (wet weather, heat)

- Phases of competition (pre, in, off season phases)
- Subphases (Macro and microcycles)
- Peaking
- Tapering
- Sport-specific subphases (fitness components, skill requirements)

The organised division of training into blocks, each with a goal and time-frame.

- To allow training volume/intensity to be monitored and adjusted
- The allocation of time periods so adaptations can take place
- To prevent athlete over or undertraining from occuring
- To ensure reaching goals are a possibility as the training year is divided into manageable areas

Pre-season:
1) 6 - 12 Weeks
2) High volume of training, high-medium intensity
3) Development of health and fundamental skill related components of fitness (adpatations occur)

In-Season:
1) Length varies depending on sport
2) Lower volume of training, increased intensity
3) Increased focus on strategy, tactics and sport specific skills

Off-Season:
1) Typically lasts around a month
2) Lowered volume and intensity of training
3) Increased focus on player wellbeing, rest and recovery

Macrocycles: Long term planning frameworks and may represent an entire training program or year. However, durations varies depending on the sport

Microcycles: Smaller subphases of competition, often representing one or two weeks of a training program. Typically contain a specific focus on a singular aspect of performance which in addition to other microcycles achieves mesocycle goals, which accumulate to macrocyle goals.

Mesocycles: Small chunk of time, usually few weeks of months. These typically allign with phases of competition and goals correspond with the focus of its microcycles

Planning and organising training so a performer reaches their ultimate readiness, physically and psychologically before an event.
- Finals and majors

- Aesthetically pleasing movements
- Improved rate of recovery
- Optimal functioning of body systems (fitness)
- Great tactical awareness and predictability
- Heightened self-confidence and motivation
- Improved mental focus and toughness (toleration)

The planned reduction of volume in training that occurs before an athletic competition or a planned recovery microcycle
- Allows the athletes tissue to rebuild and recover for a full replacement of energy stores

Refers to the selection of what is focused on during the subphases of competition in order to cater specifically for the relevant sport.

Subphases refers to the meso and microcycles that combine in order to achieve the larger goals of the athlete or team

A footballer may have a mesocyle with increased focus on cardiovascular endurance, then another mesocycle with a sport specific focus such as agility, speed, skills and tactics.

health and safety considerations
providing an overview of the session to athletes (goal-specific)
warm up and cool down
skill instruction and practice
conditioning
evaluation

The training session must be suited to the athlete and their fitness needs:
- Suitable and safe equipment (headgear, mouthguards etc)
- Safe playing surfaces (not uneven, rocks, divots)
- Injury Prevention (warm up/cool down, supervision, form)
- Environmental hazards (heat, cold, sun protection, smoke)

An overview takes place at the beginning of the session as the coaches explains his intention and expectations of his players. It should provide an outline of the session, its aim and its purpose (how it translates to competition)

Phase 1: General body warm up
Phase 2: Dynamic streching
Phase 3: Calisthenics (large muscle group activation)
Phase 4: Skill rehearsal (sport-specific routines eg passing)

The warm up prepares the body for the session, improving performance, which during training means improved physiological adaptations, and promoting safety in the session.

A cool down is a physiological recovery strategy that helps the athlete recover and adapt to training.

- Demonstration, with concise, brief and clear instruction
- Skill instruction and practice will make up for significant parts of the training and is crucial for effective coaching and athletic performance

Conditioning is the base work required for the sport, and varies for every sport. Its main focus is to bring the body to the desired state for use in that particular sport. As expected, this generally occurs in the pre-season phase of training

Should occur during or after the cool down. It grants the oppurtunity for the coach & players to reflect on training objectives & performances during the session.
- Coaches can recieve feedback from athletes
- Coach can provide feedback to athletes
- Assist in the planning of future sessions
- Allows coaches to check up on individual athletes (injury)

- Amount and intensity of training
- Physiological considerations (lethargy and injury)
- Psychological considerations (loss of motivation)

The amount and intensity of training leads to overtraining when the athlete completes high intensity training too often. This is because the athlete does not have enough time between training sessions to recover from the previous training session and its muscular micro-tears.

- Particular forms of training, such as strength training, require 48 hours of rest for the muscles in order to recover and adapt appropriately to the training.

As a general rule, athletes should not be completing high intensity training every day. In order for physiological adaptations to occur training intensities should be in the relevant training zones and often need to only occur 3 times a week. The various types of training should be examined in order to ensure that the amount and intensity of training does not place too much stress upon the athlete

Reduce the amount and intensity of training sessions. The athlete may need to take a complete break from training for a period of time in order to recover fully from their training session.

- Micro-tears from high intensity trainings will accumulate if not given adequate time to rest and repair if an athlete is overtrained. Over time this accumulation will lead to more serious injuries such as stress fractures or manifest other injuries due to weakness

- This will lead to lethargy in the athlete as the constant low level pain wears the athlete out and makes normal activity for the athlete draining.

Psychological considerations of overtraining focus on how overtraining affects our mind. Often lethargy will lead to a lack of motivation. This is because when the body is tired and suffering frequent or constant pain, our emotions become elevated. This may reuslt in an athlete not wanting to train anymore, loosing focus on their goals and ultimately failing to enjoy the sport anymore.

Physiological:
- pain
- lack of energy (lethargy)
- cramping
- frequent errors in performance/poor performance
Psychological:
- lack of motivation
- depression
- sensitive to criticism (responds poorly to criticism)
- moody and irritable

Use of drugs
Use of technology

- the dangers of PED use (physical effects, reputation etc)
- (use of drugs) for strength (hgp and anabolic steroids)
- (use of drugs) for aerobic performance (EPO's)
- (use of drugs) to mask other drugs (diuretics, alcohol)
- benefits and limitations of drug testing

Physical effects (high blood pressure, depression, cancer)

Loss of reputation (labelled a liar, a cheat, and many other things as their career spirals downward. eg; lance armstrong)

Loss of sponserhsip (Loss of monetary benefits and fines)

Loss of income (affects the entire life of the athlete, who relies on their athletic career to support themselves and their family)

Human Growth Hormone (HGP)

Anabolic Sterioids

A naturally occuring substance that increases the rate at which amino acids are trasnported to skeletal muscle cells

HGP increases size and strength as it stimulates muscle growth and fat mobilisation for use as an energy source

nerve, muscle and joint pain
gigantism (large chin, ears, hands feet)
muscular weakness, because they do not develop properly
osteoporosis
heart disease
extensive bone growth

Anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone and have similar effects on the body.

Used by athletes to develop strength and power while also changing body composition.

aggressiveness and irritability
acne
hypertension (high blood pressure)
heart issues and liver damage
Male secondary sex characteristics (facial hair, deep voice etc)

Erythropoietin (EPO)

A natural hormone that stimulates RBC production by increasing the number of RBC precursers

The more red blood cells you have the more oxygen the blood can carry leading to improved oxygen uptake and improved performance, particularly in aerobic sports, but will also raise the lactate inflection point, delaying the onset of fatigue

Increased risk of heart disease, stroke, thrombosis and blood clotting

Diuretics and Alcohol

Chemicals that enhance urinary output

Weight reduction to meet weight classes or to enhance performance in sports where low body weights correspond to improved dynamics such as racing

Dehydration, Dizziness, fainting, loss of coordination and headaches

Alcohol is a depressant and diuretic

Masks other drugs due to its diuretic properties. It is also known to relax and calm the athlete

Excessive alcohol consumption will result in a slowed nervous system, meaning; loss of coordination and dizziness. It will also cause dehydration and blurred vision

- Helps create a level playing field by promoting saefty and equity in sport
- Protects athletes health
- Allows athletes to prove that they are clean and rewards them

- It is time demanding and expensive procedure
- Disrupts athletes training (invasive)
- Hard for athletes to keep up to date with what drugs are banned
- Constantly new doping methods and innovations for cheating. Thus possibly ineffective at creating equity in sport.

training innovation, eg lactate threshold testing, biomechanical analysis

equipment advances, eg swimsuits, golf ball

Lactate threshold testing
biomechanical analysis
V02 Max testing
GPS technology

Lactate threshold testing is a training innovation that seeks to identify an athlete's lactate inflection point (the point when lactate begins to accumulate in the blood and the bodies waste removal ability is not efficient enough).

Helps the athlete to set training zones that are more accurate and beneficial, providing better results, particularly in aerobic sports where the athlete wants to be as close as possible to the lactate inflection point without crossing into the anaerobic training zone.

The analysis of an athlete's technique to ensure technique is correct to produce the most efficient movement possible and that the technique will not lead to injury.

- Eg; a golfers swing under video analysis and comparitive images

Equipment advances can be in clothing, protective equipment, general equipment, or technological equipment.
- Lycra swimsuits
- Golf balls and clubs
- Goal-line technology and VAR

Golf balls have specialised dimples and lighter materials due to their multi-layer composition which provides improved speeds, distances, feel and spin control

Equity of access: Accessing technology is expensive, eg biomechnaical analysis. Even some equipment is costly, and if all competitors cannot access technology then the competition is unfair due to inequities in access to technology.

Individual athletes from poorer developing countries cannot always afford the same technologies as athletes from developed countries