Principles of Exercise Training

Semester 1, week 11

What are the principles of exercise training?

• Individuality

• Specificity

• Reversibility

• Progressive overload

• Variation

What is the principle of individuality?

• Not all people/athletes are created equal

• Genetics affects performance

• Variations in cell growth rates, metabolism, and cardiorespiratory and neuroendocrine regulation

• → high vs low responders

What is the principle of specificity?

• Exercise adaptations specific to mode and intensity of training

• Training programme must stress most relevant physiological systems for given sport

• Training adaptations highly specific to type of activity, training volume, and intensity

What is the principle of reversibility?

• Use it or lose it

• Detraining reverses gains

What is the principle of progressive overload?

• Need to increase demands on body to make further improvements

• Muscle overload: muscles must be loaded beyond "normal" loading for improvement (=overreaching: decrement, then benefit)

• Progressive training: as performance increases, resistance/repetitions/load must increase to further increase performance

What are the symptoms of overtraining syndrome?

• General fatigue, loss of strength, coordination, exercise capacity

• Loss of appetite

• Weight loss sleep and emotional disturbances

• Hormonal disturbances (eg. Cortisol ↑, testosterone ↓)

• Resting heart rate ↑

• Sympathetic nervous response ↑

• Basal metabolic rate ↑

• VO2max ↓

• Anaerobic metabolism ↓

• And more

What is the principle of variation?

• Also called principle of periodisation

• Systematical changes to one or more variables to keep training challenging

• Intensity, volume, technique, tactics, changing exercise modes

• Macrocycles, mesocycles, microcycles

What are macrocycles, mesocycles, and microcycles?

Goals:

• Achieve acute overload

• Promote over-reaching

• Avoid over-training

• Allow for taper

How do you manage training load?

Periodisation:

• Preparation phase: focus on volume

• Pre-competition and competition phase: focus on intensity/technique

How are frequency, duration, and intensity linked?

• Frequency x duration = volume

• Intensity and volume are inversely related

• If volume ↑, intensity should ↓

• If intensity ↑, volume should ↓

• Intensity ↑ + volume ↑ → potential negative effects

• Applies across modalities (eg. Resistance, anaerobic, and aerobic training)

What are the training zones?

What are the general principles for resistance training?

• Eccentric training: higher forces, important for hypertrophy

• Specificity = what type of muscle work is required by sport

• Order:

• Multi-joint before single-joint

• Large muscle groups before small muscle groups (eg. Importance of small muscle groups in stabilisation = safety, performance considerations)

• High intensity before low intensity

What are the different focuses of resistance training?

• Muscle hypertrophy (~8-12 repetitions, high loading, slow-moderate speed, or eccentric)

• Muscle power (~3-6 repetitions, moderate-fast speed)

• Muscular endurance (~10-25 repetitions, light loading, variable speed)

What is tapering?

• Detraining reverse gains but a few days of rest can enhance performance

• Tapering = reduction in training volume/intensity

• Prior to competition (recovery, healing)

• 4 to 28 days (4-14 days for sprinters/cyclists; longer tapers reported for swimmers)

• Most appropriate for infrequent competition

• Mechanisms of action (muscle repair, replenishing of glycogen reserves)

What is a summary of principles of exericise training?

• Effective training must be specific (mode of exercise, intensity of exercise)

• Overreaching: acute depression of performance, followed by improvements

• Overtraining: can lead to chronic drops in performance

• Periodisation promotes overreaching, avoids overtraining, and allows for tapering before competitions