And here’s the first in a series on how to train properly for specific sports and other athletic endeavors. This also applies to physical rehab and increasing function in activities of daily living. In this first post, we’ll start with general tips…
First, the term “specificity” is one everyone training for a particular task should know. It basically means that the way you work towards certain physical goals should have much in common with the physical goals themselves.
If you are a tennis player, for example, you make many short burst movements, a lot of lateral movements, and do a lot of torso rotation and quick repositioning of feet. You want your conditioning to prepare you specifically for these. So, for example, jogging is not very specific to your sport. Both for the type of movement, the direction of movement, the speed of movement and the body fuel systems used.
Court drills like crossovers, shuffles, line hops and side hops are examples of conditioning exercises with specific application to tennis. These are the types of movements and training drills to focus on as a tennis athlete.
A second broad tip for athletic conditioning is to have some understanding of seasonal periodization. I have worked with many high schoolers who are multi-season athletes. This means they don’t have a traditional pre-season, season, post-season, off-season configuration to their year. But to the greatest extent possibile understand the following:
In the off-season is when an athlete focuses more on building up the aspects of fitness that he or she most needs (eg strength, power, speed…) and as the season approaches the athlete shifts more and more towards sport-specific movements and drills and more away from general conditioning (such as the weight room.)
In season, the athlete is mainly focused on playing the sport and performing very sport specific movements. This is not the time to spend energy in trying, for example, to pack on muscle.
In choosing exercises and drills to prepare you for your sport, consider the following:
What are the typical directions of movement in your sport?
What are the typical speeds of movement in your sport?
What movements are normally combined in your sport?
What is the typical time element of movements in your sport? (eg work:rest ratio, as well as balance between various intensities of movements.)
Based on this, or on getting some qualified guidance, design a training program that will maximize your ability at your sport.
Do your best!