Summary

This unit explained how planned preparation raises sporting performance, and why clean, drug-free sport must be protected. The key points, in the book's order:

• Concept and principles of sports training — Sports training is the planned, systematic and scientific preparation of a sportsperson for the highest performance, differing from personal training by being sport-specific. A coach follows the principles of continuity, progression/overloading, specificity, uniformity (individual approach), periodization (macro/meso/micro cycles), warming-up & limbering down, active participation, variety, ensuring result, and rest & recovery.

• Training load: over-load, adaptation and recovery — Training load is the demand placed on the body; it has an outer and an inner component. Over-load is excessive or badly-managed load (two types; four causes — faulty method, life, social, health; three symptom groups — psychological, performance, somatic-functional). Adaptation is the body's structural/metabolic improvement when load is matched to capacity, recovery is proportional, and cycles repeat over ~10-20 days. Recovery passes through three stages and is affected by load, health, rest, sleep, diet and daily routine.

• Warming-up and limbering down — Warming-up (passive; active = general + specific) prepares the body through physical activities, massage, hot beverages and baths, and is important for readiness, injury prevention, flexibility, temperature and performance. Limbering down (slow jog/walk, static stretches, relaxation) regulates heart rate and temperature, prevents injuries, relieves stress, restores the body and clears lactic acid.

• Skill, technique, tactics and strategies — Skill is a learned, automatised, sport-specific motor ability; technique is the scientific, efficient way of performing the fundamental movement (the foundation of skill); tactics are the on-the-spot application of skills to outwit an opponent (affected by opposition, players, importance, weather); strategy is the overall pre-planned game plan (often via SWOT). Strategy is the plan; tactics are the play. …