Program Design: Exercise Selection and Types

Program Design: Exercises

• Program design focuses on exercise selection, type, frequency, and order.
• Exercise selection considers exercise type (core, assistance, structural, power, and sport-specific), technique experience, equipment availability, and session time.
• Core exercises recruit large muscles and multiple joints, prioritized for sport application.
• Assistance exercises involve smaller muscles and single joints, important for injury prevention and rehabilitation.
• Structural exercises emphasize spine loading; power exercises are structural movements performed explosively.
• Sport-specific exercises mirror sport actions to enhance positive transfer.
• Exercise technique experience is crucial; athletes must demonstrate correct form.
• Equipment availability may necessitate substitutions.
• Time constraints may lead to the prioritization of time-efficient exercises.

Step 2: Exercise Type

• Core exercises recruit one or more large muscle groups, two or more primary joints and prioritized when selecting exercises.
• They are important in sport's application.
• Assistance exercises recruit smaller muscle areas, involve only one primary joint, and are less crucial to sport performance.
• They are common in injury prevention and rehabilitation.
• Load and repetitions are often different.

Step 2: Structural and Power Exercises

• Structural exercises emphasize loading the spine, either directly or indirectly.
• Power exercises are structural exercises performed swiftly or explosively.

Movement Analysis

• Training specificity (SAID Principle) necessitates training similar to actual sport movements.
• Considering the plane of movement, muscles, and movement speed is important for exercises resembling sport performance.
• Examples of jumping specificity are power cleans, back squats and leg presses.

Muscle Balance

• Muscle balance represents the balance of muscular strength across joints and opposing muscle groups.
• Agonists are muscles actively causing movement.
• Antagonists are sometimes passive muscles located on the opposite side of the limb.
• Optimal muscle balance is not always equal strength but a correct ratio of strength, power or muscular endurance.

Step 2: Exercise Selection

• Exercise technique experience must not assume proper form.
• Athletes must demonstrate correct form.
• Instruction is necessary if athletes require improvement.
• Equipment constraints may necessitate substitutions for specific exercises.
• Prioritizing time-efficient exercises is important when time is limited.

3) Frequency

• Training status influences rest days between training sessions.
• Sport season can limit training time.
• Training loads and exercise types need more recovery time.
• Other training, including aerobic and anaerobic training, sport skill practice, and physically demanding occupations all affect training frequency.
• Three workouts per week are recommended for many athletes.
• Frequency varies according to training status.

Step 3: Training Frequency (Table 17.4)

• Novice: 2-3 sessions per week.
• Beginner: 2-3 sessions per week.
• Intermediate: 3-4 sessions per week.
• Advanced: 4-7 sessions per week.

Key Point

• The general guideline is to schedule sessions with at least one rest or recovery day between sessions stressing the same muscle group.
• Intermediate and advance athletes can use a split routine to train different muscle groups on different days.

Split Routine Example (Table 17.5)

• Different split routine frequencies (4,5 or 6 times/week) are possible based on the individual athlete.
• This table shows a possible split routine.

Step 3: Training Frequency (Sport Season) (Table 17.6)

• Seasonal demands can limit resistance training time.
• Off-season: 4–6 training sessions per week.
• Preseason: 3–4 training sessions per week.
• In-season: 1–3 training sessions per week..
• Postseason (active rest): 0–3 training sessions per week.

Step 3: Training Load and Exercise Type

• Athletes performing maximal training loads need extra recovery time prior to the next session.
• Alternating heavy and light training days stimulates strength gains whilst allowing sufficient recovery for advanced athletes.
• This is especially crucial for multi-joint exercises.

Step 3: Other Training

• Training frequency is influenced by overall physical stress.
• Other aerobic or anaerobic training, sport practice and physically demanding occupations also need consideration.

4) Exercise Order

• Power exercises, other core exercises, then assistance exercises.
• Alternating upper and lower body exercises.
• Alternating "push" and "pull" exercises (e.g., bench press/bicep curl).
• Supersets and compound sets.

Step 4: Exercise Order

• Exercise order is the sequence of resistance routines in a training session.
• Power, Other Core (multijoint), then Assistance exercises.
• Upper and Lower Body exercises alternated.
• "Push" and "Pull" exercises alternated.
• Supersets and Compound Sets.

References

• Haff & Triplett. Essentials of Strength Training & Conditioning, 4th edition. Human Kinetics, 2016.