An Effective Approach to Training: Specificity

     Before one begins a training program, a good question to ask your self is “ why do I want to get fit and live a healthier life style”. Give yourself as many reasons as you can think of. This will give you and the trainer ( if you have one) a good idea of how to design a workout routine for you. Not everyone has the same needs when it comes to fitness. So may just want to optimize their cardiovascular endurance while getting the most benefits out of it.Others may rather focus on developing strength and muscle power for a very specific purpose ( ex: sport's related). Whatever, your need is, it is very important to train according to your defined goals. Once the needs and goals have been established, the following areas should also be carefully considered so that the resistance training program can address questions that will come up when designing the specific workouts Some questions you make ask yourself and your trainer when designing a program are the following:

1. Why and what am I training for?
2. What muscle groups need to be trained based on my activites?
3. What are the basic energy sources, am I training for short time activities or long duration ones?
4. What type of muscle action ( e.g isometric, eccentric actions) should be used?
5. What are the primary sites of injury for the particular sport, activity or simply prior injury history of the individual?
6. Do I have any current physical limitations that may stop me from making progress? What can I do to overcome those limitations?

For any activity , including a sport, this involves a basic analysis of the movements performed and the most common sites of injury. A coach or specialist may be best able to help you by watching a video tape of the performance if you are an active athlete seeking to improve performance. However, often times, just a description of the activities may be enough for a trainer to help you decide the choice of exercise that best benefit you.

Training specificity is a major tenet of resistence training and is based in the concept that the exercises and resistances used result in training adaptations that will transfer to better performance in sport or daily activities. Resistance training is considered the best way to achieve this purpose. Specificity assumes that muscles must be trained in terms of:

1. The joint around which movements occur
2. The joint range of motion
3. The pattern of resistance throughout the range of motion
4. The pattern of limb velocity throughout the range of motion
5. Types of limb movement ( ex. Concentric, eccentric, isometric)

Resistance training for any sport or activity should include full range of motion exercises around all the major body joints. Each exercise and resistance used in a program will have various amounts of transfer to another activity or sport. “ When training for improved health and well being, such a concept of transfer is more related to its effects on medical variables ( e.g bone mineral density), rather than too physical performance” according to the American college of sports medicine.

This is a concept that is very foreign to many personal trainers and yet it is so important!!!! It is important to know that every training activity has a percentage of carryover to other activities. The better you design a workout, the more carryover you will have. A good personal trainer will be able to assess you in this area. Some additional considerations that will help you be more successful in this area include: 1. determining the energy source used in the activity. 2. selecting a Resistance Modality, 3. Injury prevention exercises.

Please feel free to message me if you have any questions on how you can better design your workouts to help you achieve your goals.

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