7 Principles of Exercise and Sport Training distance.

In order to swim the 500 freestyle, you also

need to build your muscular endurance well enough
Individuality to repeat the necessary motions enough times to
finish.
Everyone is NOT created equal from a physical
standpoint. Everyone is different and responds Overload
differently to training. Some people are able to
handle higher volumes of training while others may The overload principle is one of the seven big laws of
respond better to higher intensities. This is based on fitness and training. Simply put, it says that you have
a combination of factors like genetic ability, to gradually increase the intensity, duration, type,
predominance of muscle fiber types, other factors in or time of a workout progressively in order to
your life, chronological or athletic age, and mental see adaptations. Issues with the Overload
state. Principle: others may be too embarrassed to say
Specificity something. Minor injuries can worsen if not
treated.
Exercise is stress and because the body efficiently
acclimates to stress, specificity is imposing a specific Hitting a Plateau while Ignoring the Overload
type of stress on the body repeatedly and in a Principle
variety of ways. The Specific Adaptations to Imposed
Demands (SAID) affirms that the body will improve Overreaching and Overtraining Stress Hitting a
its performance of a specific exercise over time. Plateau while Ignoring the Overload Principle
The obvious issue with ignoring the overload
Improving your ability in a sport is very specific. If principle is the failure to make gains. If you
you want to be a great pitcher, running laps will help
continue to do the same workout or train at the
your overall conditioning but won’t develop your
same intensity and frequency, you will make
skills at throwing or the power and muscular
endurance required to throw a fastball fifty times in gains only to a certain point. After that you are
a game. Swimming will help improve your aerobic not overloading the muscles and hit a plateau
endurance but won’t develop tissue resiliency and with no further improvements or adaptations.
muscular endurance for your running legs. This happens because our bodies are very good
at adapting to stress. Overreaching and
Progression
Overtraining Stress On the other hand, if you
To ensure that results will continue to improve over use the overload principle in the wrong way, say
time, the degree of the training intensity must by increasing intensity too quickly, you get into
continually increase above the adapted work load. a state of overreaching or overtraining.
Increasing weight is the most popular and most
Overreaching is a short-term problem, a
applicable method of progression; however,
decrease in physical performance that takes
progression can also be accomplished by changing
frequency, number of exercises, complexity of
days to overcome. Some signs of overtraining
exercises, the number of sets, and in any you should watch out for include:
combination. To reach the roof of your ability, you
✔ Increased resting heart rate. ✔ Fatigue ✔
have to climb the first flight of stairs before you can
exit the 20th floor and stare out over the landscape. Loss of appetite and weight loss. ✔ Chronic
muscle soreness ✔ Difficulty sleeping.
You can view this from both a technical skills
✔Emotional changes/ mood swing.
standpoint as well as from an effort/distance
standpoint. In order to swim the 500 freestyle, you

need to be able to maintain your body position and Adaptation

breathing pattern well enough to complete the
Over time the body becomes accustomed to fitness and the physiological effects diminish
exercising at a given level. This adaptation over time which throws the body back to its
results in improved efficiency, less effort and pre-training condition … reductions in
less muscle breakdown at that level. That is why performance can be lost in as little as two
the first time you ran two miles you were sore weeks and sometimes sooner. Interestingly,
after, but now it’s just a warm up for your main training has a lingering effect even when
workout. This is why you need to change the discontinued in that strength levels after de-
stimulus via higher intensity or longer duration training are seldom lower than pre-training
in order to continue improvements. The same levels.
holds true for adapting to lesser amounts of
exercise.
Note: The principles of specificity, progression,
Recovery
overload, adaptation, and reversibility are why
The body cannot repair itself without rest and practicing frequently and consistently are so
time to recover. Both short periods like hours important if you want to improve your
between multiple sessions in a day and longer performance. Physical components of fitness
periods like days or weeks to recover from a are used in school, gym, and health clubs to
long season are necessary to ensure your body measure your level of physical fitness.
does not suffer from exhaustion or overuse
injuries. Motivated athletes often neglect this.
At the basic level, the more you train the more
sleep your body needs; despite the adaptations
you have made to said training.

Reversibility

Fitness improvements are lost when demands

on the body are lowered. If you discontinue
application of a particular exercise like running
five miles or bench pressing 150 pounds 10
times, you will lose the ability to successfully
complete that exercise. Your muscles will
atrophy and the cellular adaptations like
increased capillaries (blood flow to the muscles)
and mitochondria density will reverse. You can
slow this rate of loss substantially by conducting
maintenance/reduced program of training
during periods where life gets in the way, and is
why just about all sports coaches ask their
athletes to stay active in the offseason. The
benefits of training are lost with prolonged
periods without training.

On the flip side, this also means that the

detraining effect can be reversed once training
is resumed. Extended rest periods reduce