The Principles of Training

The principles of training act as a guide to the training process regardless of an athlete's age, background, or goals. They can be used to guide an athlete when considering whether a training program is appropriate and should be utilised to optimise the training process.

Specificity

Training should be specific to individuals and their goals. To be specific within training requires athletes to train the energy system which requires development and the capabilities needed to execute the task being trained for. Before applying this principle, it is important to test the components of fitness which are important to the attribute to identify strengths and weaknesses.

The outcome of applying specificity within performance-based training is it objectively facilitates development within specific components of fitness leading to a higher level of performance overall fitness.

Overload

Stress is required to progress and improve fitness. Overload will cause long-term adaptations, enabling the body to become more efficient and cope with higher demands of training.

The body adapts to stress based on the magnitude of the stress response. The stronger the disruption to the normal baseline, the greater the response of the body to adapt to the stimulus. However, overload needs to be applied progressively in order for the body to facilitate resources to recover and adapt beyond its previous ability.

Overload can be achieved by following the FITT acronym

• Frequency: Increasing the number of times trained in a set period of time
• Intensity: Increasing the difficulty of the exercise
• Time: Increasing the length of time of training whilst maintaining the same intensity
• Type: Increasing the difficulty or variety of the training

Reversibility

Progress may be reversed by an absence from training, reduction in training or inefficient recovery. Reversibility will result in the body being unable to resume training at its previous level. 

Alongside this principle, it is relevant to consider overtraining which is a common problem when stress and recovery is insufficiently balanced. Recovery is what enables the body to become more capable. Overload will cause the body to adapt, however, without sufficient recovery this adaptation may occur at the expense of another system or quality. To prevent reversibility, it is important to sustain consistent training and sensibly monitor recovery.

Variance

Variety is important within a training program. Variance is applied in order to maintain interest in training and to provide a different stimulus to the body. Often variety is required to create a sufficient overload stimulus, resulting in improvements in fitness. However, too much variety may be detrimental to progress and make it difficult to identify progress. 

It is recommended to apply variance to programming over different time scales.

• Daily = emphasising different components of fitness over the course of the week
• Weekly = daily structure remains constant with variation in sets, repetitions, and load
• Monthly = methods and exercises progress to increase the stimulus, leading to larger changes in sets, repetitions, and load
• Quarterly = as weaknesses change, daily programming may vary to focus on new physiological capacity

Variation needs to be applied at different levels of programming depending on the time scale to allow for consistent progress. 

The principles of training should be utilised to optimise the training process.