PE - Principles of training (P1)

• Training isn't just about running for as long as possible, or lifting the heaviest weights you can
• There's much more to it than that-you need to know how training is matched to different people
• You need to be able to use the four principles of training

  To make your own personal exercise (or training) programmes
• A personal exercise programme is designed to improve whatever you want to improve-it could be your general health and fitness, or a particular component of fitness that will improve your performance in a sport or activity
• Different training methods involve different types of exercise and are designed to improve different components of fitness
• You will probably have completed a fitness test
• Factors to consider when choosing the right training method

  • What area of your sport or activity you want to improve
  • What level of fitness you are currently at
  • What facilities and equipment you have access to
• The Four Principles of Training

  • Specificity
  • Progression
  • Overload
  • Reversibility
• Specificity


  Matching training to the activity and to the person
• Progression


  Gradually increasing the level of training
• Overload


  The only way to get fitter is to work your body harder than it normally would
• Reversibility


  Any fitness improvement or body adaptation caused by training will gradually reverse and be lost when you stop training
• The best training programmes aren't just thrown together-they have to be carefully planned. Part of this planning is leaving enough time for rest and recovery, so your body has time to adapt to the training
• FITT


  • Frequency
  • Intensity
  • Time
  • Type
• Frequency of training


  How often you should exercise
• Intensity of training


  How hard you should exercise
• Time spent training


  How long you should exercise for
• Type of training


  What exercises and methods of training you should use
• All training programmes need to be constantly monitored to make sure that the activities are still producing overload. As you get fitter your personal exercise programme will need to change to keep improving your fitness
• Your Body Adapts During Rest and Recovery

  1. Training makes your body change to cope with the increased exercise

  2. These adaptations take place during rest and recovery

  3. It's vital you allow enough time between training sessions for the body to adapt

  4. It's important that you allow enough recovery time between workouts to avoid overtraining

  5. You need to balance your recovery time with the effects of reversibility
• Overtraining is when you don't rest enough-it can cause injury by not giving your body enough time to recover from the last training session and repair any damage
• If you rest for too long, you'll lose most of the benefits of having done the training in the first place. If you don't rest enough, you could injure yourself through overtraining
• If you get injured, not only have you got to wait for your injury to heal, but thanks to reversibility, your fitness will start to decrease while you do
• Continuous Training


  Exercising at a steady, constant rate-doing aerobic activities like running or cycling for at least 20 minutes with no breaks
• Continuous Training


  • Improves cardiovascular endurance and muscular endurance
  • Leads to cardiovascular adaptations
• Overload in Continuous Training


  Increasing the duration, distance, speed or frequency
• Advantages of Continuous Training

  • Easy to do
  • Prepares for sports where you have to play for long periods of time without a break
  • Increases heart size and strength
• Disadvantages of Continuous Training

  • Only involves aerobic activity so doesn't improve anaerobic fitness
  • Can become boring doing one exercise at a constant rate
• Fartlek Training


  A type of continuous training that involves changes in the intensity of the exercise over different intervals
• Fartlek Training


  • Great for cardiovascular endurance and muscular endurance
  • Helps to improve speed
  • Includes a mix of aerobic and anaerobic activity
• Overload in Fartlek Training


  Increasing the times or speeds of each bit, or the terrain difficulty
• Advantages of Fartlek Training

  • Very adaptable, so you can easily tailor training to suit different sports and different levels of fitness
• Disadvantages of Fartlek Training

  • Frequent changes to intensity can mean that training lacks structure, making it easy to skip the hard bits and tough to monitor progress
• Interval Training


  Uses fixed patterns of periods of high-intensity exercise and either low-intensity exercise or rest
• Interval Training


  • Allows you to improve both cardiovascular endurance and anaerobic fitness
  • Great training for sports where you have to move continuously (aerobic), then have sudden spurts of fast movement (anaerobic)
• Overload in Interval Training

  Increasing the proportion of time spent on the high-intensity exercise, or the overall intensity
• Advantages of Interval Training

  • Easily adapted to improve aerobic or anaerobic fitness by changing the intensity and length of work and recovery periods
• Disadvantages of Interval Training

  • Exhausting, which can make it difficult to carry on pushing yourself
• Weight Training


  Using your muscles against resistance, such as weights, elastic ropes or your own body weight
• Weight Training


  • Can be used to develop both strength and muscular endurance
  • Good for improving performance in anaerobic activities