Master the Performance Pyramid: Unlock Superior Athletic Performance with These Proven Strategies – Part 2

In Part 1 of the performance pyramid, we discussed the initial stages of the performance pyramid, focusing on stability and mobility as foundational elements. Having a strong and stable core, and good joint mobility is important to reduce the risk of injury while carrying out functional movements.

Progressing movements by loading them and making them explosive further reduces the risk of injury.

What is strength?

The ability to generate force against a resistance/ external load is termed as strength.  Strength training forms an integral aspect of athlete training.

Transfer of training

This principle states that exercises performed by an athlete should translate into their on-field performance in some way or the other.

An excellent example of this can be demonstrated, using the data of Wilson et al.

8 weeks of strength training with the squat exercise produced a 21% improvement in vertical jump performance.

 This in contrast to the concept of specificity which states that body adaptations are specific to the demands placed on them. If that were the case, sport specific training would be sufficient for optimum performance.

So, why is strength training a requirement?

Physiological changes during strength training

• Enhanced strength through hypertrophy (increase in size of muscle fiber through increased protein synthesis and deposition) and hyperplasia (increased number of muscle fibers)
• Muscle fiber type adaptation (from type IIB to type IIA)
• Increased strength of connective tissues i.e. tendons and ligaments
• Increased bone density
• Reduced joint stress during physical activity
• Positive changes in body composition (increased lean muscle mass or reduced body fat)

Understanding the Performance Pyramid and Its Training Stages

A competitive athlete might go through several stages of training throughout the year.

These include,

• Undertraining: Type of training taken between seasons or during active rest.
• Acute overload: Average training load aiming to trigger physiological adaptations.
• Over-reaching: As the name suggests, it is a brief period of high intensity training, where athlete tries to over-reach his/her capacity.
• Overtraining: Physiological mal adaptations faced by an athlete

Baseline strength, Hypertrophy, Endurance & Maximal Strength

• Baseline strength is the strength present before training initiation. It’s important to build baseline strength by performing body-weight movements, stability and low load exercises.
• Hypertrophy is an adaptation to training whereby increased demand leads to increased capacity. It leads to increased force generating capacity, muscle size and metabolic response.
• Endurance training and strength training, both essential for performance, have different impact on the body.
• Maximal strength is the maximum force generating capacity of muscle. 1RM (repetition maximum) is the ideal way to measure the same.

Endurance training

• Muscle endurance is the ability to sustain repeated contractions and resist fatigue over an extended period of time.
• Usually recommended with low intensity and high number of repetitions.
• Associated with metabolic and oxidative changes, especially increased mitochondrial density and volume
• Minimal change in muscle size and motor unit recruitment.

BLOCK 2

Maximal Explosive Strength i.e. Power Training

• It’s the ability to generate high force in minimum amount of time. It’s essentially the rate of force generation and takes into account aerobic and anaerobic energy systems.
• As explained in Part 1, power generating capacity can be altered either through intensity (force and/or distance) or time.
• For power training regimens, such as plyometric training or stretch shortening drills, the time of movement is the variable that is most often manipulated.
• Power training, a key aspect of the performance pyramid, can be aerobic or anaerobic, depending on the energy systems involved and the intensity of the exercise.
• This explosivity of training gets translated into on-field training and drills.

BLOCK 3

Metabolic Conditioning for Athletes

• Focuses on increasing the body’s energy delivery and storage during physical activity.
• Competitive athletic impose high demand upon the cardiorespiratory system.
• Example: During a 90-minute soccer game, players have been reported to run approximately 10km at intensities as high as 75% of their peak oxygen uptake.
• The cardiopulmonary system plays a key role in supplying the required energy resources and shuttling off by-products such as carbon dioxide, lactate and hydrogen ions.
• Three major systems used: Phosphagen, Glycolytic and Oxidative pathways.

Training regimes and systems they work on

• Phosphagen/ATP-PC System: Anaerobic training for short, quick bursts of activity. It is the major source of training during the first 30 seconds of intense exercise.
• Anaerobic Glycolytic System: Moderate intensity, short duration exercise and is a major source of energy during the 30^th to 90^th second of exercise. Produces lactate as by-product.
• Aerobic System: Using oxidative property of mitochondria to generate energy during low intensity, steady state exercises.

BLOCK 4

Enhancing Speed and Agility within the Performance Pyramid

• Majority sports involve constant change in direction. The ability to carry out such movement patterns is called agility.
• Another term used for agility is “speed co-ordination.”
• Agility training involves change of direction in sagittal, frontal and transverse planes.
• Acceleration and deceleration, attack and retreat drills, ABC drills are all used extensively for training athletes.

Plyometric Training

• Starts with rapid stretch of muscle (eccentric phase) followed by rapid shortening (concentric phase), producing a dynamic movement
•  Plyometrics are a natural component of most movements like jumping, hopping and bounding.
• This focuses on greater power generation through increasing the speed of movement and hence, rate of force development.

BLOCK 5

Control to Chaos Continuum Training Method for return to sports

• These training principles are aspects of athlete enhancement and athlete rehabilitation as well.
• Control to Chaos is widely used for rehabilitation of injured athletes.
• This concept believes in transitioning from a state of high control to high chaos for rehabilitation of injured athletes.
• High control, moderate control, control chaos, moderate and high chaos are the progressive levels of treatment, each having it’s own set of training techniques and intensity levels.
• Here is an overview of the continuum: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/53/18/1132

Some key takeaways are,

• A stable core is the starting point for any athlete.

• Further, parallels like strength, endurance and explosivity should be incorporated based on athlete requirements.
• Energy systems and metabolic conditioning should be given equal emphasis.

Building a strong and resilient athlete should be the goal for every sport physiotherapist.

After all, to reduce injuries on-field, one has to train hard off-field.