Enhancing Athletic Performance

• The unit explores various ways athletes can improve their athletic performance

Unit Overview

• Athletes can use training methods to enhance their performance
• Athletes can use physiological strategies to enhance their recovery
• Athletes can use a dietary perspective to enhance performance
• Athletes can use psychological strategies to enhance performance
• Some athletes use substances/methods that are legal while others are illegal

Unit Objectives

• Compare and contrast strategies/practices designed to enhance performance and/or speed up recovery
• Analyse and evaluate physiological, psychological, and nutritional/hydration procedures used to enhance individual performance and recovery
• Examine the perceived benefits and potential harms to the athlete of legal and illegal substances/methods designed to enhance athletic performance

Unit assessment

• Student's completion of the multiple choice test on Canvas contributes 30% of their overall grade for 10AAA in Semester 1

Lesson 1 - Case Study

• Breaking 2 (Beyond Limits) was a project organised and funded by Nike in 2016
• Nike assembled a team of three elite endurance athletes, coaches, and sport scientists to reach their goal
• The goal of the project was to break 2 hours for the marathon (42km event), which had never been achieved
• The runner's journey was filmed by the National Geographic channel

The Athletes

• Lelisa Desisa: An Ethiopian marathon silver medallist at the 2013 world championships with a personal best of 2:04:45 set at the 2013 Dubai Marathon
• Eliud Kipchoge: A Kenyan Olympic marathon gold medallist and former 5,000m world champion who has won seven of his eight marathons with a best of 2:03:05, the third-fastest in history
• Zersenay Tadese: An Eritrean who owns the men's half marathon world record (58:23) and won Olympic bronze in 10,000m at 2004 Athens Games; his personal best is 2:10:41 set at the 2012 London Marathon

Breaking 2 Documentary

• To watch the race component, fast-forward to the 36:20 mark of the documentary
• The full documentary can be watched at the link provided

Keys to Nike's Plan

• Course: The sub-two-hour consisted of about 17 laps on a 2.4km loop that forms part of the Monza Fl track in northern Italy. It was selected due to a combination of environmental factors, including average temperature, air pressure and wind levels
• Kit: The participant runners wore special socks, shorts, and singlets, which claimed to offer an advantage in terms of aerodynamics and/or ventilation and support
• Pacers: All three runners were accompanied by an elite group of pacers that rotated among themselves to ensure the record-breaking pace
• Mobile Support: The athletes followed a car with a large clock showing elapsed time, splits, and projected finish time
• Shoes: Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite's feature a new foam and curved carbon insert, which helps change the angle of the foot

Lesson 2: Performance Enhancement from Training and Recovery

• Athletes can improve their performance training and timely and appropriate recovery strategies

Methods of Training (Yr.9 Recap)

• Training is invariably to develop the sport or athletic performance
• Different training methods train different fitness components
• Coaches and/or performer must choose wisely in order to fully achieve their sporting potential

Training Focus

• Endurance: Includes continuous training, long interval training, and Fartlek training
• Speed: Includes short interval training, resistance training, and plyometrics
• Strength/Power: Includes resistance training, plyometrics, and circuit training

Continuous Training

• Long-duration exercise performed without stopping like walking, jogging, cycling or swimming
• Completed within the aerobic training zone (60-85% of maximum heart rate), usually for at least 20 minutes
• Improves an individual's aerobic capacity and, to a lesser extent, muscular endurance

Long Interval Training

• Effort is of long duration and relatively high intensity
• Primarily helps develop the aerobic system
• Ideal for enhancing endurance
• Work to rest ratio of 1-1

Short Interval Training

• Involves short, high-intensity efforts with long rest periods
• Primarily helps to develop the ATP-PC System
• Ideal for enhancing speed/power
• Work to rest ratio of 1:6

Fartlek Training

• Form of training that combines continuous exercise with random periods/bursts of speed
• Varying your pace throughout your run and alternating between fast segments and slow jogs.
• Improves aerobic endurance and, to a much lesser extent, speed
• Fartlek training is more unstructured and the rest intervals can be based on how the body feels

Resistance Training

• Working against some sort of force like gravity, body weight or an iron, etc
• Can be tailored to target different fitness components
• A valuable form of training for most athletes that promotes muscle growth/definition and can aid with injury prevention

Plyometrics Training

• Training method involving repeated jumping, bounding, and hopping activities (high impact activities) that cause muscles to rapidly stretch and shorten
• When implemented safely and correctly, this can be an effective training method used to increase muscular power (explosiveness)
• The explosive nature of this form of training creates a greater risk of injury

Circuit Training

• Involves the athlete completing a series of exercises in a systematic manner
• Each exercise is called a station, and the stations can train a number of different fitness components
• Circuit training includes variety, several fitness components, and minimal equipment

Training Benefits

• A number of long-term changes occur to the cardiovascular, respiratory, and muscular systems as a result of training
• Training effects don't result from a single training session, with changes coming later after months training
• Training effects are specific to the type of training undertaken or training methods used

Cardiovascular Benefits (Endurance Training)

• Increased heart size and volume, where increased size of the left ventricle is linked to increased cardiac output
• Increased stroke volume
• Increased blood volume, where increased red blood cells and haemoglobin levels and haemoglobin is important for the transfer of oxygen from the lungs
• Decreased rate of lactate production, where a delay in the buildup is beneficial to performance

Respiratory Benefits Training)

• Increased lung volume/capacity, where the lungs take in more air, which ultimately means more oxygen is available to be sent the working muscles
• Increased diffusion allows for greater exchange of gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide) at the lungs

Muscular Benefits (Endurance Training)

• Adaptations occur mainly in slow-twitch fibres
• Include increased a-vO² difference, where endurance training increases in the amount of oxygen extracted by the muscles
• Include increased mitochondria, which enhances the capacity of the muscles to produce energy (ATP)
• Include an increase in myoglobin, which results in more oxygen being delivered to the mitochondria, where it is used for energy production

Muscular Benefits (Power/Speed Training)

• Adaptations mainly occur in fast-twitch fibres
• Improvements in the anaerobic capacity, strength, power, and speed
• Adaptations include increased muscle fibre size, increased motor unit recruitment, increased neural transmission, and increased speed and force of muscular contractions

Purpose of Recovery

• Post-exercise recovery aims to overcome the effects of exercise, return the body to pre-exercise conditions, and reverse the effects of fatigue

Benefits of Recovery

• Enhances adaptations to training, prepare the performer for subsequent training or competition bouts, and increase the performer's capacity to train

Consequences of Poor Recovery

• Insufficient recovery will delay the removal of fatiguing by-products, impede the process of adaptation to training, take performers into dangerous areas of overtraining, increase the risk of injury, and lead to illness

Recovery Strategies

• Massage: Stimulates blood supply, offers relaxation, and releases stress
• Hot and cold showers: Contrast water therapy, involves vasodilation, helps direct blood back, promotes circulation, and prevents venous pooling
• Stretching: Improves joint mobility, prevents muscle stiffness, and best right after the exercise during the cool-down
• Spas: Warm environment increases blood supply to muscles
• Pool recovery sessions: Reduces stress on joints and is very popular
• Walking in the Ocean: Is a popular form of recovery for sports teams, and supplements ice treatment to injuries
• Sleep: Provides the body an opportunity to repair and adapt
• RICERS: An acronym that stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation, Referral, and Stretching which assists recovery from soft tissue injury

Lesson 3: Performance Enhancement from Psychological Perspective

• Athletes apply psychological strategies or mental skills to enhance performance
• Strategies to enhance performance and aid recovery include motivational techniques/goal setting, optimal arousal, mental imagery, concentration, and sleep
• Psychological factors impact performance and recovery

Common psychological elements

• Motivation
• Concentration
• Imagery
• Arousal regulation
• Meditation

Motivation and Goal-Setting

• Motivation activates, directs, and sustains behaviour toward achieving a particular goal
• An athlete drive for success is important during both training and competition
• Motivating factors can be extrinsic or intrinsic
• Coaches play a vital role in athlete's motivation

Benefits of Goal-Setting

• Has been shown to increase work output by up to 40 to 50%
• Focus on attention to new learing strategies
• Refine movements and set plays
• Contributing towards the person psychological state

SMART Goals

• Specific
• Measureable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Timely

Arousal Regulation

• Arousal is the amount of readiness a person experiences when faced with a task
• Low arousal is linked to boredom and poor performance
• High arousal is linked to anxiety, excess tension, and also poor performance
• High arousal can be triggered by team conflict, inadequate preparation, criticism, or pressure

Arousal Regulation Techniques

• Increases arousal: Elevate breathing rate, act energised, use positive self-talk, listen to uplifting music, and raise heart rate through exercise
• Decrease arousal: Progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, sleep, and breathing control

Mental Imagery

• Athletes perform skills in their minds before actually doing them
• Imagery leads to better pathways between the brain and muscles
• Imagery should involve the senses

How Imagery improves performance

• Reinforcing mental templates
• Taking players through scenarios they are likely to encounter
• Breaking down complex skills into their components
• Allow movement to be seen, and felt
• Work in conjunction with other psychological skills

Improving Concentration

• Athletes shut out irrelevant cues and sharpen selective attention to use cue words that trigger specific responses
• Use of routines that act as templates and facilitate automatic behaviour
• Meditation involves exercising of an individual's attention and gives the mind a powerful arousal reduction technique

Sleep

• A lack of sleep can result in poor performance
• A lack of sleep can increase levels of the stress hormone such as cortisol, or decrease the ability to metabolise glucose (low energy)
• Can also decrease human growth hormone activity, decrease aerobic endurance, increase moodiness, and decrease decision-making ability

Lesson 4: Performance Enhancement from a Dietary Perspective

• Analysis and evaluation of nutritional and hydration procedures to enhance individual performance and recovery

Nutritional Elements

• Carbohydrate loading
• Carbohydrate gels
• Protein supplementation

Hydration Strategies

• Water
• Hypertonic drink
• Hypotonic drinks
• Isotonic drinks

Food Fuels (Yr.9 Recap)

• Energy for movement comes from three main nutrients
• Carbohydrates
• Fats
• Proteins

Fuel Source Recap (Year 9)

• Carbohydrates: Preferred fuel source during exercise, releases energy three times faster, requires less oxygen; stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen
• Fats: The body's main source of fuel, particularly at rest, a source of energy, but can only be broken down aerobically
• Protein: Not used as a fuel source, only during emergencies when the body is depleted of energy and is mainly used for growth and repair

Carbohydrate Loading Definition

• Dietary performance enhancing strategy that involves change to both training, and nutrition to maximise source of the muscle, and liver glycogen.
• To prolong carbohydrates as fuel, and delay body rely on fats.

Why Load Carbohydrates?

• Body takes longer, to convert fats into energy
• Body requires, three times faster to convert fats into energy.

Carbohydrate Loading

• 3 to 4 days of exercise reduce training load
• • High carbohydrates appro x 7 to 10 g muscle
• Glycogen levels
• Improves activity by 3 % to 5%
• Demonstrates endurance for athletes

Benefits of Carbohydrate Gels

• Refuel during an event
• Refuel after carbon depleted

Protein Supplementation

• Protein is used by athletes who call upon power and strength
• Used material that provides the strength towards muscle and repair

Hydration benefits

• Loss of two liters after strenous activity
• Aids to allow athletes to fluid an electrolyte Loss
• To promote fluid intake with redurine

Fluid Percentage

• (1% loss) Body temperature mild risk
• (2% body loss) impaired memo dry mouth loss of appetite
• (4%) 20 to 30 % reduction
• (5%, difficulty, and lack of concentrate

Severe Dehydration

• Reduced performance

Dehydration effects

• 20 ml increase. Requires fluid movement. depletes cab stores
• Deplation can raise
• Heart rate. Increased exhaustion, decrease gastric

Types of Drinks (Hydration)

• Hypotonic: Low in carbohydrate level. Suitable for athletes
• Isotonic: Rehydrate Electrolytes
• Hypertonic: High energy source

Hyponotic Sports Drink

• Low concentrate solution
• Absorbed very quickley
• 49 of Carbonate for athlete .

Isontonic Sport Drinks

• Isotonic drinks body of sales. (cell)
• 408 grams. Refule and help hydration

Hypertonic Sports Drinks

• High concentrated sports drink
• useful when exhaisted. / long distant
• for the source of carbon top level muscle, of carbon

Lesson 5: Legal and Illegal Performance-Enhancing Strategies

• Discussion of legal and illegal ways to enhance the perceived beenfits and risks to the athlete
• Discussion focusing on:
• Creatine Supplementation
• Anabolic Steroids
• Blood Doping
• Dieuretics
• Stimulants
• Beta Blockers

Legal and Illegal Performance Enhancers

• Legal supplements enhance in dietary form
• All powerfull sports people
• Reported increased
• Strength to power
• Suggestions promote

Illegal Peformance Enchancers

• Most commonly use illegal sports
• Male sectorsterone Atheletes increas bulks

Illegal Method (Anabolic Steroids)

• Increase recovery greater working
• Decrease tissues
• Increaes heart rate

Risks in Involved in Anabolic Steroids

• -Incertility
• -Facial Care
• -High blood Pressure

Blood Doping

• Athletes use blood transfusions
• Increases Cell production. and oxygen
• Endurance athletes use this, allows greater productions

Beta Blockers

• Increased stress of the heart

Masking Agents and Diuretics

• Athletes may need to do what ever.
• High concentrate

Illegal performance with stimulants

• Enhanced alerness
• Reuce fatugue
• Masking of pain

Illegal stimulants

• Enhanced alerness
• High muscle reacttion

Class Discussion

• The test and reaction whether safety is given or not.