FITT – Type of Training For Peak Performance in Sports

To have a solid training programme for peak performance in sports, choosing the type of activities for your programme is important. Let us take a look 3 type of activities that can be used to organize a training programme for peak performance in sports.The next principle in FITT is Type of activities that must be conducted and organized for peak performance in sports. Having planned and established the required frequency of training and decided upon the measure of intensity of training, it is important to use the correct type of activities to use in training to promote peak performance in sports. Here, we can classify type of activities used according to the following categories.a. General Fitness ActivitiesThese are activities and exercised that are more fitness related with very little skill related activities.Common activities in this category include weight training, aerobics, interval training, body resistance training, plyrometric training, fartlek, partner resistance training, endurance based activities, body pump, skipping, etc. The examples mentioned here are extremely effective training tools to improve fitness of athletes for peak performance in sports. They are also easily implemented and monitored, which is a good thing for a coach. The down-side of this is that it can be boring to the athletes. Performing monotonous runs, painful weight lifting and repetitive body resistance exercises are not exactly the most fun and inspiring things in the world to do. These form of activities need to form only a minor portion of the total training time for each session. It is recommended that anywhere from 10-20% of the time should be devoted such training activities. Another way to implement such activities is to use them as a form of disincentives. Any sub-standard performances in training can mean more of these general fitness activitiesb. Sports Specific Training ActivitiesAs the name implies, these are activities that are related to the sports been played by the athletes. These activities should form the bulk of all training times. They will include activities, drills, games and any other form of exercises that are related to the sports. Players are involved in their chosen sport because they are passionate about it in the first place. Nothing will motivate them more than to get them to practice what they have signed up for. For example, it will not make sense for water-polo players to spend more time out of the swimming pool than in it. Water-polo players must spend as much time as they can in the water so that they get use to the sports medium as much as possible. It is up to the coach to be resourceful to come up with as many sports specific training activities as possible for peak performance in sports. So if the aim one of the session is to build agility as well as dribbling skills in soccer, perhaps using dribbling skills at high intensity with lots of changes in direction will be the right activity for the session.c. Cross Disciplinary ActivitiesCross disciplinary activities are activities with little familiarity to the chosen sports being played, but they still allow the players to maintain and improve their fitness, conditioning and skills. This form as activities is especially important during breaks from the main sports season. Very often playing too much of the same sport year in year out can be very detrimental to the athletes psychologically as well as physically. Burn out from over exposure to the same sports can occur if too much of the same activities are done. To counter this and get the players a break, engaging in relevant cross disciplinary activities can be very helpful to refresh the players. In most continental European soccer leagues, the leagues have winter breaks lasting between 2 – 4 weeks during the Christmas and New Year period. During this break, the players do not just go on vacation and do nothing. In fact, many teams will bring their players away from cold countries to warmer ones to engage in some other activities other than soccer. These activities keep the players renewed and refreshed. Some team also make use of the wintry cold and snow, by engaging in skiing to keep their players conditions at their peak, so that when they return for the second half of the season, the players are still in good shape to play the remaining games. This form of cross disciplinary activities is extremely useful to recharge player’s batteries.With a good mixture of these three types of activities in the training programme, athletes will find the variety, motivation and usefulness in them to improve their peak performance in sports.

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