Teaching the Principles of Training. It's Time to Get This Right! Part 1/2

Specificity! Progression! Overload! Reversibility! FITT!

This is the hitting zone for PE teachers and highly influential subject knowledge for us all  whether teaching Key stages 1-5 or teaching a PE qualification such as GCSE or A-level or BTEC. Every PE teacher knows the principles of training and there is zero confusion about what the principles mean and how to teach them, right? Wrong!! 

In this post, I am going to argue that there is deep confusion about the Principles of Training. Now, I am not referring to the fact that Edexcel calls it Progressive Overload and OCR calls it Progression and Overload separately. Not at all. This is about fundamentals and ensuring that, no matter what your specific (and often exam board) lexicon is, we all understand the key concepts and can both deliver them and cause them in students.

Getting to it

Let’s focus on the principles of training. You will know them slightly differently depending on which exam board you teach but, in essence, the overlap is almost universal. The following relate to current GCSE PE specifications:

Let’s assume that the fullest list of principles of training is as follows:

In Part 1 (this week):

• Specificity
• Progression (progressive overload)
• Overload (progressive overload) - Frequency, Intensity, Time/Duration, Type
• Reversibility

In Part 2 (next week):

• Tedium
• Thresholds
• Individual needs
• Overtraining (sometimes referred to, inversely, as moderation)

But what are the principles of training? If these are their names, what are they for? Put simply, the principles of training are the guidelines for making physical training both impactful and sustainable.

The principles of training allow an athlete and/or trainer to cause the maximum adaptation possible but to do so without causing the athlete to need to stop for extended periods of time. 

The principles are fascinating because they stress such interesting physiological concepts beneath the surface. Take overload, for example. Overload tells us that if an athlete stresses their physiology more/longer/differently (in combination with a good diet), they can take proteins from the outside world, break them down into amino acids, deliver those amino acids to cells and the human body, specifically these tincy wincy organelles called ribosomes, will reformat those proteins into highly complex combinations in order to build human proteins such as human muscle tissue or metabolic enzymes required for energy release. Wow! Wow! Wow! If anyone tells me that this is not deeply fascinating, then they have no emotion. Every time I think about this, it blows my mind. The principles of training unlock these ideas in students’ lives and, what’s more, they are highly practical and directly applicable to life. 

I could write numerous other statements like the one above but I’ll resist and get to the nitty-gritty. Let’s start with specificity.

Specificity

Specificity is all about accuracy. It is the most fundamental layer of our training principles because it stresses a coach or an athlete to choose the right options. For example, training is more specific when any of the following have been taken into account when choosing a training method or a specific format for training:

• Athlete’s dominant energy system in their sport or position
• Athlete’s dominant muscle groupings in their sport or position
• Athlete’s dominant method of travel in their sport or position
• Athlete’s dominant component of fitness in their sport or position
• Athlete’s fitness test scores in relation to their sport or position

I could go on, but let’s assume that we are talking about a highly dynamic striker in field hockey. Training would probably become specific by addressing these points:

• The dominant energy system would be anaerobic (ATP/PC for higher-level learners).
• The dominant muscle groupings would be leg musculature, shoulders and core.
• The dominant method of travel would be running.
• The dominant components of fitness would be power and, perhaps, agility.
• Fitness test scores could highlight a relative weakness in power.

In this case, it would seem clear that, in order to make training specific, a coach or the athlete themselves is likely to select a method such as plyometric training or intervals. They would probably incorporate some weight training also and they would ensure that they don’t only focus on the legs but train the upper body too.  

Notice how specificity does not, in this particular article, take into account concepts such as age, sex, training history, injury history or personal preferences. Whilst these can be included in specificity, I am going to include a section on individual needs as a core principle of training. These individual factors will be considered via that principle.

Progression

I will write about progression and overload separately but, for some of you, they will be combined concepts. In reality, all of the principles of training overlap, so it should be possible to think of any two coupled together or, indeed, uncoupled. Take specificity and individual needs from the previous paragraph. Likewise, progression and reversibility can be coupled and I will stress this point in a few sentences’ time. 

Progression nods towards physiological processes but is a partner to both biological and psychological studies. Progression can be summarised very simply by stating:

• Increases (of any of the FITT principles) must be incorporated gradually into training.
• Increases (of any of the FITT principles) must be incorporated steadily into training.

We could leave it there but I want to take the point further. Earlier in the article, I got all excited about the role of proteins (I love the little buggers!) and how the human body can take proteins from plants and animals, break them down into their constituent units, amino acids, and then rebuild those amino acids into things like human muscle tissue, metabolic enzymes, etc. 

This concept is critical for the core intuition of progression because progression is all about getting this process to occur to the maximum or required degree over time. We want to maximise progression but the biggest threat to this is that, should we stop training due to injury, illness or demotivation (reversibility), the human body will ‘deprogress’. In other words, those protein-derived improvements in muscle tissue or energetic reactions will go away. But, if we progress our training gradually and steadily, the chances of us training more over time are greater! 

So, another nice way to think about progression is that it is tied to reversibility. If we break the principle of progression by, say, doing too much, too hard and too soon, reversibility will apply because training will stop due to injury or demotivation. Help your students to understand these two concepts in combination.

Overload

OK, here we go. The big one: Overload!! Overload is –of course– critical, as we have to continually increase the challenge of training for adaptations to occur. But overload is, in my opinion, a more nuanced point than most students (and teachers?) typically consider it to be.

Let’s be clear: overload causes physiological adaptations because, through training, organ systems such as the musculoskeletal system, cardiovascular system and respiratory system are stressed and respond with adaptations to that stress. In essence, a muscle that has lifted more weight strengthens in the days after those lifts. Furthermore, connective tissues develop more robust surrounding tissues and so on. The same could be said of any of the other organ systems.

But let’s get to the nuance. How does overload occur? In most cases (on most courses), overload is considered to have four potential components:

In order to stress those organ systems, athletes can train more often (Frequency), train harder (Intensity), train *longer (Time) or train in a greater variety of ways (Type).  But, again, nuance matters because, without it, students easily become confused. Let’s take our table from above and apply it to a long-distance runner:

Before we move onto a more intermittent-type experience, let’s think about the relationship between these overloads. Common sense would tell us that it is not a good idea to apply all these increases at the same time. For example, a runner who overloads with an extra session (F), at extra pace (I), for longer (time) all in one go is going to get injured or burned out (reversibility). Rather, the athlete may choose to overload initially by increasing time and only in later weeks increase frequency and/or intensity. Therefore, our model may look like this:

In our model above, training has been overloaded in all four ways but has been done in a strategic and considered manner ensuring that the principles of progression (gradual and steady) and reversibility (avoid injury and/or burnout).

But this becomes much more nuanced when we look at an intermittent training schedule such as weight training. Let’s go back to our highly dynamic hockey striker. They sprint and explode, dodge, etc. Therefore, they need strength and power. Their schedule might look like this:

Now, I am going to hazard a guess that some of you are freaking out about the time column. Some of you probably expected to read something like 30-minute sessions or equivalent. The thing is, in intermittent training models, reps, sets and the recovery between IS the time of training. For example, in the case above, we could calculate the session length:

• Total exercise time: 6 exercises x 5 sets x 4 reps x 0.05 mins (3s) per rep = 6 mins of lifting
• Total recovery time: 6 exercises x 5 sets = 30 sets x 0.75 mins (45s) recovery time per set = 22.5 mins of recovery time
• Total session length: 6 mins + 22.5 mins = 28.5 mins

This gives a work:relief ratio of 1:3+ which is exactly where we should find the ratio for power or max strength exercises.

I really want to stress this point: in order to overload time, specifically in intermittent training, we do so through the number of sets, reps and the length of recovery time. Doing more sets, say, is absolutely NOT an increase in intensity. No! Sets, reps and recovery time are temporal, they relate to time.

Put another way, if an exam board was to pose an exam question such as: 

Q: Explain how a sprinter can increase the intensity of their training. (2)

Answers relating to the number of sets, reps and recovery MUST NOT be accepted because the question specifically asks about intensity. Ironically, increasing reps, sets and –say– decreasing recovery time, all of which are factors of time, would actually lead to a decrease in average exercise intensity in any individual session.  Referring to reps, sets, recovery times between sets would only correct if the question was changed to:

Q: Explain how a sprinter can increase the intensity and time of their training. (2)

or

Q: Explain how a sprinter can overload their training. (2)

So, with this behind us, let’s look at a four-week programme with the breadth of overload incorporated:

Once again, we are overloading but we are honouring both the concept of progression (gradual and steady) and reversibility (trying to avoid physical and emotional burnout).

Those of you with an eagle eye will also notice that, in addition to increasing the time of the session by adding a rep to each set in week 4, I actually decreased the time in week 2. Why? Because one of the factors that I have actually changed is the work:relief ratio which, in week 1, was 1:3+ but, from week 2 onwards, went to 1:3. Therefore, this is an excellent example of how to overload using time. 

Reversibility

Reversibility is a principle of training specifically because physiological adaptations can do a 180° pivot and can ‘deadapt’. We want to prevent muscle tissue from getting smaller (atrophy)... we want to prevent those tendons from losing their sheath tissue… we want to prevent those brand new haemoglobin from decreasing in proportion in the blood (haematocrit). Why? Because as far as the human body is concerned, one either uses those adaptations or they lose those adaptations. 

Reversibility helps us to prevent ‘deadaptation’. The way we do this is simple:

• We follow the principle of progression and make increases that are steady and gradual.
• We avoid physical injury including overuse injuries by applying the principle of type or variety.
• We avoid emotional burnout by limiting overload, making training specific, and by incorporating rest and recovery.

That’s it, really. Personally, I often think of reversibility as a by-product of other principles such as moderation or progression. Once again, reversibility is coupled with other principles. Try to encourage your students to identify this.

So, there we have it: the first bunch of principles of training explained and developed. I will be writing about the remaining principles next week, so do check in and have a read about moderation and thresholds, etc. I hope you find it useful.

Have a lovely day. 

James