TRAINING
Steve Bird
The Principles of Training
So getting fit for a particular sport is not just about “doing a bit of exercise”. For training to be really effective it should be planned in accordance with the physical demands of the sport and with definite aims. If training isn’t carefully thought out it’s not likely to give you the best possible results. No exercise session should be undertaken as an isolated event, but should form part of a planned program. So in order to get the most benefit from your training you need to apply the principles of training which are as follows; (i) Overload, (ii) Specificity, (iii) Duration, (iv) Intensity, (v) Frequency, (vi) Recovery, (vii) Progression, (viii) Reversibility and (ix) Periodisation.
Overload
The previous two articles of this series outlined the key components of an orienteer’s fitness, which are: 1. A high capacity to utilize oxygen (VO2max) 2. A high lactate threshold – the ability to run at relatively fast speeds without accumulating lactic acid 3. Good running economy This article will look at the principles that we need to apply to our training in order to improve these factors. There is no magic recipe for training that suits everyone, but by understanding the basic principles we can make informed decisions about what is right for us. Individuals vary in the amount and intensity of training that they perform best on. What someone can undertake may be too much and injure another person. Additionally the amount of training for each individual will vary at different times, depending upon what other demands they are experiencing, including work stresses and personal factors. Additionally when reaching the Masters age groups, ageing is liable to reduce the amount of training that can be performed, often it is a case of the spirit being willing but the body needing more time to recover. Each sport has specific fitness requirements, so we need to tailor our training accordingly. Which is why the participants in different sports need to train differently. Of course there is often some overlap in the fitness requirements of different sports, with for example, a fit squash player being fitter for Orienteering than a sedentary person, but even the best squash players wont be as fit for Orienteering as the best orienteers because the fitness requirements are different and they train differently. The reverse will also be true, as many of us who consider ourselves to be quite fit find out when we attempt a sport or activity to which we are unaccustomed. 30 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2005
The idea of training is to promote improvements in the physical condition of the body. Exercise is the stimulus that promotes these improvements. However in order to stimulate the desired improvements, the body has to experience a certain amount of physiological stress - it has to work harder than it normally does in most everyday activities. For example to stimulate improvements in the cardiovascular system’s (heart and blood) capacity to deliver oxygen to your muscles (VO2max) you have to make the heart beat harder and faster. Additionally, in order to increase your muscles’ capacity to use the oxygen you have to make them exercise at levels that require large amounts of oxygen, and perhaps for brief periods just beyond their oxygen utilizing capacity. This is also liable to improve you lactate threshold. For an orienteer these training stimuli are best achieved by running for foot orienteers and by cycling for mountain bike orienteers. If trying to increase the strength of your muscles (as this may assist with running uphill and over difficult ground features, and has particular implications for older orienteers who may lose strength due to ageing), you have to make your muscles work against harder resistances than they would normally encounter. This can be achieved by weight training. Whereas to improve your flexibility, you have to stretch your muscles and move your joints through a greater range of movement than usual. Each of these activities provide the required overload and stimuli needed to produce improvements in these aspects of your fitness, which if applied correctly will improve your performance and will be covered in a future article .
Specificity Any improvements in fitness will be related to the type of training being undertaken. For example doing weight training in a gym will increase the strength of your muscles but will have little, if any, impact upon your VO2max. The specificity of changes in cardiovascular fitness (VO2max) may be divided into those associated with delivering oxygen to the muscles (primarily involving the heart, blood and lungs) and those involved with utilizing the oxygen when it gets to the muscles (primarily involving the biochemistry and morphology of the muscles). It is recognised that almost any form of cardiovascular exercise (jogging, cycling, swimming and aerobics) will cause improvements in oxygen delivery and will therefore have some fitness benefit to an orienteer, but the improvements in oxygen utilization primarily occur in the specific muscles being used for that activity. This is why runners need to spend most of their time running, swimmers swimming and cyclists cycling. That is not to say that they should not do the other activities and indeed on occasions they may benefit from them. For example a runner may switch to cycling if they have an injury, as this will help to maintain a certain amount of cardiovascular fitness as they recover from the injury. Also, by doing another form of training you may prevent staleness and overuse injuries that can occur if one activity is repeated too often. However if not injured, cycling will not be as effective as running at improving their running performance and vice versa, as the muscles are used in different movements, differ in their relative
