Conditioning

1
Chapter 4

• Conditioning Strength Training in Athletics

2
Overview

• Purpose of conditioning and strength training
• Fitness-testing procedures
• Fitness-testing parameters
• Exercise prescription
• Developing the strength-training program
• Types of strength training
• Equipment selection
• Integrating other fitness components
• Preventing injury

3
Purpose of Conditioning and Strength Training

• Athletes, and the athletic trainer's, role in
  conditioning and strength training
• Optimize performance athletic development
• Prevent injury
• People in other exercise settings
• Enhance health and wellness
• Optimize performance
• Older adults
• Maintain health and wellness
• Improve quality of living

4
Fitness-Testing Procedures

• Measures the athlete's level of fitness
• Helps identify muscle groups or energy sources
  that need to be trained
• Usually includes tests of muscular function,
  cardiovascular function, speed, agility, and body
  composition
• SPARQ testing provides sport-specific evaluation
• www.sparqtraining.com
• Preseason participation evaluation

5
Fitness-Testing Procedures

• Ongoing evaluations
• For athletes
• Help to identify particular weaknesses that may
  have developed
• For physically active (non competitive athletes)
• Indicate progress toward fitness goals and
  whether changes in the program are advisable
• Postseason fitness evaluations
• Used to plan and assess the off-season training
  program

6
Fitness-Testing Parameters

• Muscle function
• Muscle strength
• Ability of the muscle or group of muscles to
  overcome a resistance
• 1-repetition maximum (1RM) test
• Muscular endurance
• Ability of a muscle or group of muscles to
  perform a repetitive action
• Sit-ups, push-ups, or more sport-specific
  evaluations such as the squat with a light weight
  for a cross country runner
• Muscle power
• Rate of performing work A weight lifted (force)
  through a range of movement (usually a vertical
  distance) divided by the unit of time required to
  perform the lift
• Vertical jump

7
Fitness-Testing Parameters

• Cardiovascular function
• Evaluating aerobic power
• Ability to use oxygen in performing work
• 1.5 mile (2.4 km) timed run, step test, 2 mile
  (3.2 km) timed run
• Evaluating anaerobic power
• Ability to perform activities of very short
  duration using metabolic processes that produce
  energy without oxygen
• Vertical jump, shuttle run

8
Fitness-Testing Parameters

• Agility and speed
• Agility
• The ability to start, stop, and change direction
• Shuttle run, T-test, Edgren Side Step test
• Proper footwear time to learn the pattern before
  being timed
• Speed
• Length of time required to travel a set distance
• Runningpreferably in distances similar to those
  that occur in the sport timed dashes such as the
  40 yd (37 m) or 100 yd (91 m) dash for sports
  with short bursts of sprinting

9
Fitness-Testing Parameters

• Flexibility
• Joint structure
• Structure of joint surface determines the motions
  available
• Ball-and-socket versus other types of joints
• Effects of muscle size
• Muscle bulk can limit movement
• Can avoid this loss of flexibility in two ways
  stretching the same muscle that is strengthened
  and strengthening the opposite muscles
  (antagonists)

10
Fitness-Testing Parameters

• Flexibility (cont.)
• Ligament and tendon composition
• All connective tissues are made up of collagen
  and elastin
• Some people have more elasticity than others have
  
• Age and sex
• Females tend to be more flexible than males
• As people age, they tend to decrease in
  flexibility
• Active people are more flexible than sedentary
  people

11
Fitness-Testing Parameters

• Flexibility (cont.)
• Testing
• Importance
• Hamstring sit-and-reach test
• Pectoralis major muscles supine, elbows clasped
  behind head then relax shoulders to allow elbows
  to move toward table

12
Fitness-Testing Parameters

• Height, weight, and body composition
• Uses of anthropometry height and weight
• To determine position on team an athlete is best
  suited for
• Self-knowledge
• Unexpected changes can be a sign of a medical
  condition

13
Fitness-Testing Parameters

• Height, weight, and body composition
• Body composition test is more significant
• Amount of fat in relation to lean tissue
• High levels of fat affect ability to move
  optimally and are associated with certain
  diseases and illnesses
• Methods of measuring
• Skin calipers
• Body mass index
• Hydrostatic weighing
• Bioelectrical impedance

14
Exercise Prescription

• Needs analysisconsidering the objectives of the
  program
• What muscle groups should be conditioned?
• Demands of sport Physiological and biomechanical
  analysis of the skills of the sport
• Abilities of the athlete
• Energy systems
• Muscle activity concentric, eccentric, or
  isometric?
• Injury patterns
• Team's injury history
• Athletes injury history

15
Exercise Prescription

• Goal setting
• Short-term goals
• Include immediate (individual day) and
  short-range (month) goals
• Contribute to the long-term goal
• Long-term goals
• Must be established by the athlete
• Should be specific, measurable, and attributable
  to the conditioning program
• Limitations to the plan
• Recognize that obstacles to achieving the goal
  will occur, and establish alternate plans
• Provide communication and encouragement

16
Exercise Prescription

• Exercise plans
• Training volume Amount of work performed
• Exercise order
• Station approach Maximize overload on one muscle
  group before moving to the next
• Circuit training Work a muscle group to fatigue,
  and then hurry to the next exercise, maintaining
  the elevated heart rate

17
Developing the Strength-Training Program

• Resistance and overload essential to every
  program
• Exercise intensity
• The percentage of the 1RM relationship of
  percentage to strength gains
• Hypertrophy method
• Goal is increased muscle mass through increasing
  the size of individual muscle fibers
• 5 to 12 reps at 70 to 85 of the 1RM
• High-intensity training method (HIT)
• Goal is to improve recruitment of existing muscle
  fibers rather than to increase the size of the
  fibers
• Intensity reaches up to 100 amount of weight
  increased if athlete can lift prescribed weight
  more than four times

18
Developing the Strength-Training Program

• Periodization
• Brings about peak performance by constantly
  changing training stimulus (intensity, volume,
  specificity, etc.)
• Reduces risk of injury and overtraining
• Macrocycle comprised of mesocycles, mesocycles
  comprised of microcycles

19
Developing the Strength-Training Program

• Macrocycle
• Duration of competitive training
• Annual for most athletes, every four years for
  Olympic athletes
• Progresses from high volume, low intensity
  non-sport specific to low volume, low intensity,
  sport specific activity

20
Developing the Strength-Training Program

• Mesocycle
• Preparatory phase
• Off-season (3 sub-phases)
• Hypertrophy/endurance
• Low intensity, high volume
• Non-sport specific
• Strength
• Moderate intensity, moderate volume
• Power
• High intensity, low volume
• Sport-specific

21
Developing the Strength-Training Program

• Mesocycles (continued)
• In-season
• Competition phase
• Maintenance driven
• High intensity, low volume
• Post-season
• Transition phase
• Unstructured
• Allows time to recover physically
  psychologically

22
Developing the Strength-Training Program

• Progressive overload
• Gradual increase in the stress placed on a muscle
  as it gains strength or endurance
• Accomplished through increasing repetitions or
  resistance

23
Developing the Strength-Training Program

• Rest periods and training frequency
• Rest periods Amount of time between consecutive
  sets
• Longer3 to 5 minwhen training for absolute
  strength (1RM loads)
• Shorter30 to 60 secwhen training for muscle
  hypertrophy (8-12 reps with submaximal weight)
• Rest periods in circuit training 11 ratio and
  when to modify
• Training frequency Length of time between
  exercise sessions
• Typically, weight training done on alternating
  days
• Longer recovery needed if early in exercise
  program, if exercises are multijoint, if maximal
  or near-maximal loads are used
• Shorter recovery needed if low volume used on
  days between high-volume training, or if athlete
  has been weightlifting on a regular basis for
  several years

24
Types of Strength Training

• Isometric
• Muscle generates a force, but there is no joint
  movement resistance is greater than the athlete
  is able to move
• Strength gains are greatest at the precise joint
  position at which the contraction is performed
• Isometrics are not often applicable to sport
  performance, though consider holding positions in
  wrestling and gymnastics, abdominal muscles in
  swimming, abdominal and back muscles in running
• Difficult to measure the overload

25
Types of Strength Training

• Isotonic
• Moving the joint through a range of motion with a
  set amount of resistance applied
• Occurs in lifting free weights and in most
  activities of daily living
• Variable resistance
• Delivers a varying resistance at different points
  in the range of motion
• Offset cam on Nautilus/variable-resistance
  machines sliding lever bar systems rubber bands
  or elastic tubing (provides increased resistance
  as the band is elongated)
• Isokinetics
• Muscular action performed at a constant velocity
• Isokinetic machines provide a maximum resistance
  throughout the entire range of joint movement

26
Types of Strength Training

• Concentric and eccentric training
• Most sports involve both phases
• Concentric muscle activity
• The shortening of the muscle when a limb moves
  through a range of motion with a resistance
  applied
• This muscle action is the force-production part
  of almost every human movement
• Eccentric muscle activity
• The lengthening of a muscle (lengthening
  contraction) that occurs with lowering of a
  weight
• Does not occur in every form of isokinetic
  exercise (some isokinetic machines do allow
  eccentric contractions), proprioceptive
  neuromuscular facilitation exercises, or manual
  resistance exercises without modifications
• Does occur with most other weightlifting machines
  and in all forms of body weight conditioning
  (push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, etc.)

27
Types of Strength Training

• Plyometrics
• Also known as stretch-shortening cycle exercise
• Stretch phase Eccentric loading phase
• Shortening phase Force-production or concentric
  phase
• Every physical activity incorporates the
  stretch-shortening cycle
• Critical feature A concentric force production
  follows every eccentric load absorption
• When a muscle is stretched prior to the onset of
  a contraction, the contraction is greater than it
  would have been otherwise
• Can be used as part of a rehabilitation program
  or to prepare for a specialized skill or
  performance

28
Equipment Selection

• Must understand biomechanics of the sport or
  activity, then attempt to find specific exercises
  to challenge the relevant muscles to adapt, and
  choose equipment on these parameters
• Free weights
• Strength-training machines
• Can be less expensive than free weights
• Safer for young athletescannot drop weight on
  foot or chest
• May not provide an adequate range of exercises
  for all sizes of athletes or for all strength
  levels

29
Equipment Selection

• Individual machines
• Take up more space and cost more than free
  weights
• Major benefit can exercise an individual joint
  action or muscle group
• Other equipment
• Functional activities
• Plyo balls, elastics, swimming or pool work
• Comparing equipment types
• In general, free weights are thought to be more
  beneficial than machines
• Machines offer an advantage when range of motion
  is limitedin rehabilitation situations or for
  athletes who have disabilities

30
Integrating Other Fitness Components

• Aerobic endurance training
• Nearly every physical activity requires some
  degree of cardiovascular, or aerobic, endurance
• Establish fitness level by using a cardiovascular
  stress test to determine the maximal heart rate
• The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM)
  recommends an exercise intensity for aerobic
  conditioning between 60 and 90 of the maximal
  heart rate (or 50 to 80 of the VO2max obtained
  in a stress test)
• Overload required, short-term goals leading to
  long-term goals in a steady progression

31
Integrating Other Fitness Components

• Anaerobic training
• Not as universally required as aerobic training,
  but critical in most sport activities
• Training principles
• Requires short, intense bursts of activity
• Should be sport specific
• Possible methods running short, intense sprints
  performing short, intense bouts on a slide-board,
  bicycle, step-up equipment and so on
• Cannot be sustained for long periods of time
• Can use interval training to allow body to
  recover
• Who should train anaerobically?
• Primarily for people with moderate level of
  fitness who want to improve this aspect of their
  conditioning
• Not appropriate for older adults or others who
  have low fitness levels, or for anyone who might
  risk injury doing exercise at high intensity
• People at risk for cardiovascular disease should
  be carefully screened
• Program design
• Advantageous to vary distances of sprints during
  the workout
• Increase volume gradually to avoid injury
  Increase mileage or time spent by no more than
  10 per week
• Alternate interval training days with days of
  rest or more moderately paced exercise

32
Integrating Other Fitness Components

• Flexibility/stretching programs
• Rationale for stretching reduction of injury?
  improvement of sport performance? use in
  rehabilitation?
• Passive stretching
• No work on the part of the athlete
• Another person carries limb through range of
  motion must have training
• Active stretching
• Athlete takes an active role in the stretching
• Uses his or her own body to produce the stretch
• Contract/relax stretching
• Partner or therapist provides the resistance to
  the contraction and stretches the muscle group
• Preliminary contraction may allow the muscle to
  more fully relax during the stretching cycle
• Single, straight plane of motion

33
Integrating Other Fitness Components

• Flexibility/stretching programs
• Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF)
• Requires that three movements occur
  flexion/extension, abduction/adduction, and
  rotation
• Diagonal patterns of movement traversing three
  planes
• Stretching methods
• Static Joint moved to the point at which
  tightness is felt, and that position held
• Ballistic Involves a bouncing movement not
  entirely safe
• Dynamic Involves sport-specific movements for
  example, "high knees" for sprinters

34
Preventing Injury

• Coaching methods
• Particular coaching techniques or instructions
  can cause or prevent injuries (e.g., spearing
  versus head up during tackling in football)
• National Standards for Athletic Coaches (National
  Association for Sport and Physical
  Education/American Alliance for Health, Physical
  Education, Recreation and Dance AAHPERD)
• Matching athletes on motor skill performance
• Controlling biomechanical stress/overuse
• Role of extrinsic forces (someone else landing on
  your foot)
• Modifying physical demands placed on athlete
  (being aware of illness and fatigue)

35
Considerations for Female Athletes

• Hormonal differences
• Neural differences
• Strength/body weight ratio
• Absolute vs. relative strength