Sports and Fitness Workouts
Sports and fitness is no longer guess work, it's based on documented and provable scientific knowledge. These days a fitness trainer and the type of workouts he would put his/her team through, is now part of a structured plan that includes the head coach, specialist coaches, therapists, secondary technical coach, physiotherapist, fitness trainer and sports scientist, all part of a working team to establish a specific goal.
The bottom line is that sports and fitness workouts for any elite athlete is not what it used to be 50 years ago, everything has changed. Trainers design workouts to improve agility, strength, flexibility, plus anaerobic and aerobic endurance as well as speed training. These workouts will be very specific to a sport that is suitable for the specific athlete. Any coach or trainer who wants to create any sports specific fitness workout for any athlete under his/her care, first needs an assessment; they need biomechanical and physiological data. Often the trainer will liaise with physiotherapists for data on rehabilitation and injury prevention to give sound and constructive nutritional advice.
These days designing a sports specific workout and fitness program for an athlete requires an expertise and experience that is often beyond the knowledge of most coaches, which is why they often use specialist fitness trainers to optimize their physical preparation.
When you approach a management consultancy company to get a problem solved their first objective is to offer a business solution. It's the same with any athlete, they first need and comprehensive fitness assessment together with a needs analysis.
The consultancy company will then start by assessing their new client's current status, the systems they use, the markets they trade in, etc. The final step of this is to then to be able to calculate exactly what this "gap" is so that the bridge between their client's current statuses can be changed and adapted to achieve a specific business goal.
It's this gap analysis which is a plan to be implemented based on the specific outcome of a gap analysis that sports fitness programs are designed. The collection of data during this gap analysis is vitally important. Below are just 4 points that a gap analysis needs to consider.
Step 1. Set the team or the athlete's goals - what they want to achieve.
Step 2. Assess the teams or the athlete's current fitness level specific to their chosen sport, or event they want to compete in.
Step 3. Create a gap analysis by calculating the difference between every different fitness component the athlete and team currently has and the ideal fitness levels desired.
Step 4. Design a training program that's going to improve every aspect of the respective fitness level to get to the required level.
You probably are well aware that all strength and muscle gain, as well as cardiovascular fitness is progressive. This means that you can't get stronger training once a week and you can't get fitter going for a stroll in the park every Sunday. It needs to be progressively more intense, otherwise you will just get worse, not better.
This progression is planned, it's specific, usually 6 to 8 weeks before changing the cycle, slowly but steadily increasing the intensity of any plyometric drills done or the weight lifted. For example, to replace a squat jump with a lateral sprint etc. After the programmed 6 to 8 weeks the athlete would then get re-tested to see if there is any improvement.
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