With social media, there are so many valuable contents that are available that can help fitness enthusiast and athletes to become better performer and improve their overall health. However, because of vast amount of information, both good and bad, it is somewhat confusing to know what you should prioritize in your training sessions.
General and Specific Conditioning
When training clients, I program their training session in two different categories. One is general conditioning and second is specific conditioning. General conditioning refers to general fitness such as mobility, strength, muscular endurance, VO2 max, metabolic flexibility and so on. Specific conditioning refers to specific to the sports or activities that the trainee is working on. This can be practicing soccer, basketball, baseball, boxing, hiking, biking, horse riding, running and so on.
Both conditionings are equally important because they can complement each other. However, often time these two get confused to the point trainee and trainer lose track of what they are supposed to be working on or trying to obtain too many goals per session and not seeing any progress. It is important to know what your training goals are and what are you accomplishing by training at the gym or hiring a trainer.
For example, I train few teenage soccer players. Most of them practice 3-4 times per week. They hired me for injury prevention and improve their general fitness, mainly strength and speed. From assessments we know their ankle and lower back is weak along with overall strength.
With 3-4 soccer practices per week, I will not be focusing on their specific conditioning by adding more soccer specific conditioning work in their routine. My focus will be more on general conditioning where I focus on their issues and build overall strength by coaching them how to use their body more efficiently. This will help improve the quality of their practice, which is specific conditioning, and be ready for their competitions.
Creating Training Block
Typically, when I’m training clients or myself, I will create 6–12-week block. From the example from earlier, I will spend 6-12 weeks to work on improving ankle and lower back issues. This typically be mobility and strength work. I like to combine these two since exercises such as squat, deadlift, bench, overhead press, pull, and carry can help me monitor the improvement and/or observe area of attention needed. I will also focus on their muscle, breathing and heartrate recovery by taking time between each set.
After 6-12 weeks, I will reassess and often time, start working on increasing intensity by increasing load to improve their strength and pair with speed training. Each session, I observe their movement pattern to make sure that their body is functioning in the ideal pattern and coach any issues as needed.
Have Meaning To Your Training
Often times, the mind of trainee is in outside of what they are training for. Have a purpose to the each training session. What is your goal? Why are you using that exercise for? Why did you choose that reps and sets? How long will you be on that program? How are you monitoring your progress? If you are training by yourself, this is something that you should be thinking about. If you have a trainer, this is something that your trainer should be thinking about.
Kota Shimada
Comentarios