Science of Sports Training : How to Plan and Control Training for Peak Performance
Science of Sports Training (Thomas Kurz, ed 2, 2016) is titled correctly because it shows the science behind all aspects of training for all sports and the special strength to master them. You will learn what an Olympic cycle is and how it is broken into annual training cycles. You’ll also learn how to raise training results by using GPP to build greater techniques and a larger training base.
What is the speed barrier and how does an athlete overcome it?
The speed barrier appears when the athlete learns to move at a certain rate and finds he cannot run any faster even with added strength or reaction time.
This is,of course, the law of accommodation that we find in the science and practice of strength training.
How is the problem solved?
One way is by having teammates or coaches encourage the athlete to perform better.
This should already be the case.
The second method is to stop doing sport-specific speed exercises and do directed and general speed, plus strength exercises.
By doing this the memory of performing running tasks in the same time will be forgotten.
The book addresses many, many questions that you should be interested in for getting the best results.
When should children start strength training?
What is sport-specific strength?
What does directed strength training cover?
The athlete will learn how to develop speed as well as reaction time. This is. of course. most important for the athlete.
To build speed you must learn what exercises and activities to use for increasing sport-specific speed.
What are rest intervals and what is active rest?
Do you really know what endurance is?
And what factors affect endurance training like pain, fear and motivation.
How do you increase endurance and when does one stop endurance training?
Have you ever considered these factors?
What is circuit training used for and how do you organize it?
Can you learn coordination and find out how to stretch and build flexibility?
Do you know what the flexibility reserve is?
What are special strengths and how are they measured?
Is it to build up the amount of weight lifted, or at a certain velocity.
From this book you can learn how to apply tactics depending on your skills or lack of them and your opponents.
How do you build the ability to relax both mentally and physically through general psychological training like providing motivation.
Do introverts train like extroverts or differently?
This book tells all and much more.
Many times Westside is asked for a six to eight or 12-week training plan, but training should be a long term plan that is broken up into a daily, weekly, monthly plan that grows into a yearly and multiyear plan.
By doing this type of planning you can measure the changes in improving all physical tasks.
When does one know they are overtrained? What are the tests? How do you correct it?
How long between extreme workouts as well as medium and small workouts?
How do you measure physical abilities?
What is the difference between anaerobic and aerobic fitness?
There are many forms of fitness including neuromuscular fitness. How do you test them?
Can the athlete pass a psychological test that considers group cohesion and mood states?
Much of my knowledge about the science applied to different sports came from this book by Thomas Kurz.
I took for granted in the beginning that there was only one type of strength, and endurance was just that.
To excel at coaching you must have a vast amount of experience and then combine it with practical knowledge gained from books just like Science of Sports Training.
I personally will always be indebted to men like Thomas Kurz for publicizing this fine book and others.
Louie Simmons