Athletes' physical attributes vary greatly, and training the same way year-round can decrease your performance. Sports use varying levels of strength, stamina, endurance, glycogen, fat, fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers, aerobic and anaerobic energy and other skills and abilities, and this requires different training methods. Creating workouts to address the different factors that influence your athletic performance helps you perform at your peak.
Cardiovascular System
Depending on your sport, you need different levels of cardiovascular capacity, stamina and recovery. Capacity refers to the amount of exercise your heart and lungs can handle at one time. The more capacity you have, the more intensely you can exert yourself. Stamina, or endurance, refers to your ability to work longer. A sprinter needs more cardio capacity than a marathoner, who needs more endurance. Your ability to recover from repeated, high-intensity bouts of activity is important for athletes such as tennis, basketball, soccer or volleyball players. Slower, longer training helps build stamina during the off-season, while high-intensity intervals improve recovery during the pre-season and during your season.
Energy Systems
Your ability to create and use energy is another factor in your athletic performance. When you build aerobic endurance, you can use your slow-twitch muscle fibers, burn fat and move your muscles for longer periods efficiently. Improving your anaerobic conditioning with interval training means being able to work at high-speeds for short periods, using more glycogen and fast-twitch muscle fibers. You also can more quickly recover after a point or play. Anaerobic conditioning helps you restore depleted glycogen to muscles faster and remove anabolic waste, such as lactic acid. Many athletes save aerobic workouts for the off-season and train anaerobically during the season.
Musculature
Your muscles provide strength, explosive and reactive power and endurance. The more muscle strength you have, the more power you can generate in movements such as a golf, a tennis or baseball swing or a football block or tackle. Explosive power helps you create one powerful movement, such as starting a foot race or getting off the line at the start of a football play. Reactive power helps you when you need to coordinate muscle movements, such as during a basketball dunk, tennis serve or volleyball spike. The more endurance you build in muscle, the longer you can play at a high level. Work on strength during the off-season and explosive and reactive power during your season.
Footwork
In many sports, footwork separates the best players from the rest. Your ability to move quickly and stay on balance in all directions is key to getting you into position to use your stroke, shooting, hitting or kicking skills. This is why athletes train using drills for speed, balance, agility and quickness. Train your high-twitch muscle fibers during the pre-season and in season with high-intensity anaerobic drills.
Nutrition
Eating the right foods at the right times is important for athletes because it helps build and fuel muscles. Carbohydrates and fat help fuel performance, while protein helps build muscle. A lack of water can decrease the effectiveness of workouts and cause cramping during competition. Sports drinks help athletes not only stay hydrated during games, matches and races, but also restore depleted glycogen, sodium, potassium and other electrolytes.
