Exercise Prescription and Training Design

This topic covers the first three content groups of Training for improved performance: how exercise assessment and prescription are personalised, how training influences movement and performance, and how training differs for individual and group sports.

• Exercise assessment: pre-exercise questionnaires and screening; fitness testing for recreational participants and elite athletes; how assessment informs program design.
• Training types and methods: anaerobic (anaerobic interval, HIIT, SIT, plyometric, resistance); aerobic (continuous, fartlek, aerobic interval, circuit); flexibility (static, dynamic, ballistic, PNF); strength (free and fixed weights, body weight, elastics); skill and tactical development (drills, modified games, games for specific outcomes).
• Training principles: progressive overload, thresholds, reversibility, specificity, variety, warm-up and cool-down, applied to aerobic and strength training.
• Adaptations: heart rate, stroke volume and cardiac output, oxygen uptake and lung capacity, haemoglobin level, muscle hypertrophy, fast- and slow-twitch fibres, and how they improve performance.
• Individual versus group sports: designing a session; yearly programs (pre-season, in-season, off-season, peaking, tapering, sport-specific attributes); psychological strategies for arousal, stress and anxiety; factors affecting strategies and tactics.

The energy systems (ATP–PC, anaerobic glycolysis, aerobic) from Year 11 are assumed knowledge. You need them to explain why a training method suits a sport.

Pre-exercise screening

A questionnaire (in Australia, commonly the Adult Pre-exercise Screening System) asks about known heart, lung and metabolic conditions, chest pain, dizziness, medications, pregnancy and injuries. Its purposes are to:

• identify people at higher risk of an adverse event, who need medical clearance or supervision by an accredited exercise professional;
• tailor the program, for example avoiding aggravating an old injury.

Fitness testing

• Validity: the test measures what it claims to measure. Reliability: it gives consistent results when repeated under the same conditions.
• Recreational participants: simple, cheap, safe field tests (push-ups, sit-and-reach, the beep test, a timed walk) used to set goals, track progress and motivate.
• Elite athletes: precise, sport-specific and often laboratory tests (VO₂max on a treadmill, blood lactate, force plates, GPS and heart-rate data), repeated often to fine-tune training and monitor readiness.
• Using results: set a baseline, identify strengths and weaknesses, set goals, choose methods, set intensity (heart rate zones, a percentage of the one-repetition maximum or 1RM), then retest to adjust the program.

Key distinctions:

• Fartlek is continuous running with unstructured changes of pace; interval training uses set work and rest periods.
• HIIT uses near-maximal efforts (about 85–95% of maximum heart rate); SIT uses all-out efforts with long recoveries.
• PNF = stretch, contract isometrically against resistance, relax, stretch further. Ballistic stretching uses bouncing, which triggers the stretch reflex and carries more injury risk.
• Plyometrics uses the stretch–shortening cycle (bounding, depth jumps) to build power. It requires a strength base and good landing technique.

• Progressive overload: increase the load gradually (as a rule of thumb, about 10% or less at a time) as the body adapts.
• Thresholds: the intensity needed to cause adaptation. The aerobic training zone is about 70–85% of maximum heart rate (MHR); above the anaerobic threshold (about 85% of MHR and higher) training is mainly anaerobic.
• Specificity: match the energy system, muscles, movement patterns and speed of the sport.
• Reversibility: gains are lost when training stops. Aerobic gains decline within a few weeks; strength is usually lost more slowly.
• Variety: change methods to maintain motivation and avoid overuse, without losing specificity.
• Warm-up and cool-down: prepare the body (raise temperature and heart rate, dynamic stretches, skill rehearsal) and help it recover (light activity, stretching).

Worked example: a heart rate training zone

A 40-year-old recreational runner: $\text{MHR}\approx 220-40=180$ bpm.

So the aerobic training zone is about 126–153 bpm. The formula $220-\text{age}$ is only an estimate; an elite athlete would measure maximum heart rate in a maximal test.

Applying the principles to aerobic and strength programs

Worked example. A rower's resting heart rate falls from 72 to 54 bpm over a season while resting cardiac output stays about 5.4 L/min. Her resting stroke volume has risen from $5400÷72=75$ mL to $5400÷54=100$ mL per beat. The larger stroke volume is the adaptation; the lower heart rate is its result.

Designing a session

Consider health and safety, the session aim, warm-up and cool-down, skill instruction and practice, conditioning, strategies and tactics, and athlete reflection or coach evaluation.

• Individual sport (for example swimming or tennis): highly individualised intervals and technique feedback; tactics are rehearsed by the athlete alone.
• Group sport (for example netball or AFL): must cater for different positions and fitness levels; often uses modified and small-sided games that train fitness, skill and tactics together; communication and team plays matter.

Yearly programs

• Off-season: rest, recover from injury, maintain a general fitness base, cross-train.
• Pre-season: the highest training volume, moving from general to sport-specific fitness and skills.
• In-season (competition): maintain fitness, refine skills and tactics, manage load and recovery.
• Peaking: timing the program so the athlete is at their best for a key event.
• Tapering: reducing volume while keeping intensity for about 1–3 weeks before the event.

Individual athletes such as swimmers and runners can plan one or two peaks a year around major championships. Group sports with weekly games maintain performance across a long season and try to peak for finals.

Psychological strategies

The inverted-U hypothesis: performance improves as arousal rises up to an optimum, then declines. The optimum is lower for fine, complex skills (putting, shooting) and higher for gross, strength-based skills (weightlifting, tackling).

• Anxiety can be cognitive (worry, negative thoughts) or somatic (tension, racing heart, butterflies).
• Lowering arousal: relaxation (progressive muscle relaxation, slow breathing), mental rehearsal and imagery, positive self-talk, routines.
• Raising arousal (when flat): psych-up music, energising cues, goal reminders.
• Groups add team routines, shared goals, team talks and clear roles; individuals rely more on personal routines and self-talk.

Strategies and tactics

A strategy is a plan made before competition; tactics are the actions and adjustments made during play. Influencing factors include the opposition's strengths and weaknesses, the score and time remaining, weather and venue, the athletes' fitness, skill and fatigue, and the rules.

• Confusing validity and reliability.
• Defining a principle without saying how it is applied in a program.
• Listing adaptations without the performance benefit, or giving aerobic adaptations for a strength program.
• Saying tapering means stopping training.
• Saying fast-twitch fibres turn into slow-twitch fibres.
• In "compare" questions, writing about the individual and group sports separately.

• Show the chain training → adaptation → performance in any adaptations question.
• Use numbers: heart rate zones, percentages of 1RM, work-to-rest ratios.
• Always name a sport and match it to the energy system it relies on.
• For extended responses, plan with a table: principle × aerobic × strength.

• Nutrition, recovery, technology and injury (HMS-T2): recovery, sleep and nutrition determine whether training adaptations happen; poorly designed overload causes overuse injuries.
• How healthy are Australians? (HMS-H1): physical activity is a key protective factor for chronic disease.