Fundamentals of Training Science Part 4 - Training Principles

Physical activity exposes the body to stress. After activity, if there is allowance for recovery, the body's response will be to rebuild itself a bit stronger or more enduring. An adaptation to the stress has occurred, leading the body to become stronger in the face of the next challenge, which in turn leads to a measurable improvement in performance. Structured training is often based on principles of how different types of training can affect performance. Below is an overview of these.

Physical activity leads to a response from the body. Under good conditions where recovery and energy are made available, this leads to adaptations. By adaptations, it means that the body's anabolic (building) processes are activated to develop the body. Both structural adaptations such as muscle proteins, mitochondria, capillaries, nerves, and blood cells as well as chemical adaptations like enzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, and glycogen stores are areas adjusted by the training. Different intensity and focus in training lead to different adaptations. But the conclusion is that the body always adapts to the new demands we place on it.

One of the simplest training principles is that you become good at what you train for. If you want to run fast, you should train to run fast and not just do strength training, or for that matter cycling, which will make you more enduring but will not contribute to an increased running ability. This is called the principle of specificity. However, it is obviously not that simple. One must consider recovery, injuries, motivation, etc. Based on the principle of specificity, training is usually divided into different stages, making training planning easier as well. These are general training, sport-specific training, and competition-specific training. Simply put, the closer you get to the competition season, the more specific the training should be.

If one were to follow the principle of specificity blindly, most of us would probably only train at competition pace, as that is what we want to excel at. But one must also consider the principle of overload. This means that the body wants to become stronger after an activity so that the next time it does not feel as strenuous. You can see it as training the body is like pushing a beach ball underwater; when you let it go (recovers), it flies up above the water surface (your previous level) and you reach a higher performance level. This principle is also used to plan training and rest to ensure optimal compensation occurs at the right time. It is a balancing act, because if you do not train hard enough, the stimulus will not be sufficient to reach a new level, but if you train too much without adequate rest, the curve will point downwards and performance improvement will stall.

When one starts training, most have probably noticed how quickly improvements can happen. The body is quick to adapt, and the adaptation processes run at high speed. However, sooner or later you reach a plateau where improvements do not come as easily anymore. Therefore, a good training strategy based on progression is needed. Progression means that you have an overarching plan for how training should increase over time, from day to day up to months and years. In this process, there are many areas to structure, e.g., training volume, number of sessions per week, competitions over a year, session length, rest intervals, work intervals, difficulty in technique training, ratio of hard/easy sessions, etc.

In conclusion, it should be said that to achieve the best performance, one should view these principles from an individualized perspective. We have different strengths in different types of training and respond differently to that training. Therefore, simply copying another person's training plan is seldom the best idea. We have different genetic predispositions, but also mentally different starting points. For some, short intense sessions work much better than training for long durations. It is about finding your own balance.

Our hope at Umara is that through this article series, you feel a bit more confident in training science and therefore dare to experiment with your training and energy plan to find your optimal performance. If you want to learn even more, we suggest a visit to Prestera Mera.