Components of Fitness

Session Aims

• Review the components of fitness
• Define the components of fitness
• Enumerate health-related component
• Enumerate skill and performance-related components
• Introduce the needs analysis process
• Athlete needs analysis process
• Sport needs analysis

Components of fitness

• Health and Skill/Performance related components of fitness
• Health related: cardiovascular capacity, muscular endurance, muscular strength, body composition, and flexibility
• Skill/Performance related: anaerobic capacity, anaerobic power, speed, agility, reaction time, balance, and coordination

Definitions relating to fitness components

• Cardiovascular capacity is the maximum ability to take in, transport, and utilize oxygen
• Muscular endurance is the ability to perform submaximal contractions for extended periods of time
• Muscular strength is the maximum force that a muscle or muscle group can generate at a specified velocity
• Body composition is the relative amounts of water, protein, mineral, and fat in the body
• Flexibility is the range of motion around a joint or series of joints
• Anaerobic capacity is the maximum capacity to keep performing without sufficient oxygen
• Anaerobic power is the maximal rate at which work can be performed by the anaerobic system, per unit of time
• Speed is the rate of distance traveled, measured either at an instant or over a duration
• Agility is the ability to move and change body position and direction quickly and effectively, reacting to an external stimulus
• Reaction time is the speed at which it takes to respond to an external stimulus
• Balance is maintaining equilibrium both at rest and during dynamic actions
• Coordination is the ability to integrate multiple movement patterns efficiently

Needs Analysis

• Involves evaluating the status of the athlete
• Also involves evaluating the sport and demands placed upon the athlete
• Overall, the process should be viewed as the scientific process of exploring the key determinants of success for a sport
• Establishing a hierarchy of the components of fitness to reflect this
• The analysis will enable the optimization of testing and training stimuli
• Based on evidence-based performance goals

Athlete Evaluation

• Involves gathering five key information points:
  • General demographic information: Age, mass, stature, etc.
  • Current perceived physical status: habits, injury, illness, etc.
  • Level of performance: high level, recreational etc.
  • Competitive/Training background: exposure to previous training stimulus: standard training session
  • Goals

Athlete Evaluation: Level of Performance

• Begins after obtaining evidence-informed data, individualised performance data
• Establishes and maintains a baseline for athletic performance
• Helps prioritise key components of fitness
• Helps compares to similar-level athletes
• Enables re-testing to check the efficiency of training modalities
• Can be used to demonstrate effective training and remotivate clients
• Provides the ability to address performance improvements as needed to address performance is not improving in a defined timeline

Athlete Evaluation: Competitive/Training Background

• Previous training experience can aid in determining appropriate training expectation with skill and technical knowledge

Sport Evaluations

• Involves three key considerations
  • Biomechanical analysis
  • Physiological analysis
  • Injury analysis
• All Evaluations must be based on scientific evidence

Applied Example of Needs analysis

• Running backs (RB) in American football utilized for applying the needs analysis
• As an example, the primary injuries in American football are ankle sprains, ligament/cartilage damage, hamstring strains, and concussions

Anaerobic fitness

• One component of fitness that needs to be defined
• Includes anaerobic power and capacity
• Review the determinants of anaerobic fitness
• Assessment methods need to be explored
• Associated components need to be introduced, like speed and agility/change of direction
• Training principles need to be examined

Anaerobic Fitness: Two Component Parts

• Anaerobic power is the maximal rate at which work can be performed by the anaerobic system, per unit of time
  • Product of muscle force output and the velocity of muscle shortening.
  • Viewed as an instantaneous metric - single/maximal effort
• Anaerobic capacity is the maximal capacity to keep performing without sufficient oxygen
  • The maximal amount of energy that can be released anaerobically during a certain bout of exhaustive exercise
  • Considered high-intensity endurance activity (60-90 seconds or repeated intervals)

Anaerobic power

• Muscular power is proportional to the velocity at which force can be applied
• Muscular power reaches a max at approximately one-third of the max velocity and one-half of the max force
• A baseball pitcher requires higher velocity than a shot putter to achieve max delivery speed
• A shot putter requires higher force generation than a pitcher to move the implement

Anaerobic Capacity

• High-intensity endurance exercise generally performed above VO2 max, involving anaerobic contribution
  • Time-trial athletic events (30s-90s): Single effort, linear pattern of fatigue across event
  • Repeated sprint (games) sports: Multiple efforts, fatigue observed across a series of high-intensity efforts, sprints
    • Repeated sprints - suboptimal rest time causing decline of performance
    • Intermittent sprints - sufficient rest time for continued performance
• Anaerobic capacity is important often in aerobic sports and an important determinant of success

Key Determinates

• Strength qualities
• Technical aspects
• Flexibility
• Body composition
• Muscle fibre type
• Muscle mass
• CNS
• Metabolites

Assessments

• Direct - Assess power through direct collection of variable
  • Wingate anaerobic test
    • Single/Repeated effort
  • Critical power test
  • Maximum Accumulated Oxygen Deficit
• Indirect - Extrapolate/infer power based on other collected variables
  • Jumps; (Time and jump height)
  • Load-velocity profiling
  • Sprints
    • Single maximal effort
    • Repeated effort

Assessments

• Direct/single-effort assessments
  • Maximal effort
  • Short duration
• Direct/repeated effort assessments
  • Maximal effort
  • Inadequate recovery intervals
  • Sport specific with work or rest representative of real-world

Lab Assessment: Maximum Accumulated Oxygen Deficit (MAOD)

• Used to evaluate anaerobic capacity
• Measure the difference between the estimated oxygen cost of exercise and the accumulated oxygen uptake
• Represents the amount of oxygen that is "lacking" or not taken up by the body during high-intensity exercise
• Valuable tool for assessing anaerobic capacity directly
• Helps identify strengths/weaknesses of energy systems
• Enables training and performance optimisation

Maximal Accumulated Oxygen Deficit Method

• Session 1: VO₂ is measured at increasing stages of an incremental exercise assessment, with a graph relationship between VO2 and power generated
• Session 2: Athlete exercises at supramaximal intensity (e.g. 120% of power output at VO2 peak) until exhaustion
• The differences between maximal accumulated oxygen demand and actual accumulated oxygen uptake (AOU) are determined

Determining the Training Goal

• Peak Anaerobic power
  • Muscle mass output
• Mean Anaerobic power - Fatigue index
  • Power capacity
• Power velocity

Training Goals

• Primary aim of sessions will determine the change in the required stimulus
• Muscle mass / function
• Anaerobic capacity
• Interval training

Targeting Anaerobic Capacity/Anaerobic Glycolysis

• High rate of anaerobic energy release an important stimulus for adaptations of the muscle's anaerobic capacity
• Maximises the function and duration of ATP-PC system
• Develops buffering system in the muscle
• Increase effectiveness of glycolysis
• Develop pain threshold and lactate tolerance
• Aerobic system development

Speed

• Rate of distance travelled, measured either at an instant or over a duration
• Ability to move quickly across the ground or move limbs rapidly to grab, kick or throw an object

Four Key Aspects of Speed

• Reaction time
• Acceleration speed
• Maximum speed
• Speed Endurance

Assessments of Speed

• Speed is a skill that needs to be assessed and trained individually
• Acceleration speed can be assessed, with time and sprint distances from a stationary start of 5-30m.
• Maximum speed - Record instantaneous speed
• Speed endurance
  • Linear sprinting
  • Repeat sprintability

A key factor of speed

• Force generating capacity of muscle fibres
• As speed increases, the production of force decreases
• Fewer and fewer force-generating bonds can be formed as the myosin and actin slide past each other at higher speeds
• high type 2 fibre proportion → more active fibres to produce force at high movement speeds

Another key factor of speed

• Maximal exercise fatigue - maximal exercise, a decline in PCr availability occurs
• Within a six-second cycle sprint muscle PCr and ATP content decreased significantly

Another Key Factor...

• For speed and power exercise that lasts > 30 seconds
• As exercise is prolonged, an increase in inorganic phosphate accumulation occurs
• Coupled by inhibitory effect on force development via coupling
• Later in maximum exercise, accumulation of H+ and pH (acidosis) occurs
• A decrease in neural drive

Agility and Change of direction

• Change of direction: the ability to change direction to a predetermined location on the field while in control
• Agility : move and change body position and direction quickly/effectively, reacting to an external stimulus, in a controlled manner
• Combination of cognitive and physical components.

Key considerations for Agility in team sports

• Match-play in team sports is multidirectional
• The success of a team relies on responding to ever-changing game scenarios through change of direction
• Reactive ability is essential for success of sport

Assessments: Agility and CoD

• Important to assesses both aspects of agility separately
• This will enable efficient training to be prescribed to key weaknesses
• Unable to understand interpret fully without separate assessments

Agility and CoD: Categorising the Athlete

• Fast mover Fast thinker
• Fast mover Slow thinker
• Slow mover Fast thinker
• slow mover Slow thinker

Sport-specific speed training Development

• Development begins with maximal intensity
• Following the SAID principle; train specifically
• Improving is done via considering: -Acceleration -Maximum speed -Speed endurance
• Utilize short duration bursts with long recovery windows (3-5min)
• Ensure ATP-PC System Recovery

CoD Development

• Begins with developing technique
• Forward lean
• Low centre of gravity
• Longer contact time to generate force
• Minimise braking forces: caused by excessive stride length
• Minimise ground contact time
• Exerting maximal backward impulse