Principles of Training and Training Methods
Welcome to one of the most practical and high-scoring chapters in your GCSE Physical Education course! Whether an athlete is preparing for the Olympic Games or someone is simply looking to run their first 5K, they cannot just train randomly and expect great results. Effective training requires clear rules, clever planning, and the right methods.
In this chapter, you will master the foundational rules of fitness design—the principles of training—and examine the seven specific training methods prescribed by the AQA specification. Don't worry if the calculations or technical terms seem daunting at first; we will break everything down step-by-step with simple analogies and sporting examples!
Note: For related topics such as fitness tests, injury prevention, seasonal training, or warm ups, see the other chapters in the "Physical training" section.
---Section 1: The Principles of Training (SPORT)
To design an effective fitness programme, coaches and athletes use four fundamental rules. You can easily remember them using the acronym SPORT:
S – Specificity
P – Progressive
O – Overload
R – Reversibility
T – Tedium
1. Specificity
Specificity means making training relevant and appropriate to the exact demands of the sport, position, or fitness goal. This includes training the correct energy systems (aerobic or anaerobic), the specific muscle groups used, and the relevant fitness components.
• Everyday Analogy: If you want to get better at playing the guitar, you do not practice the drums! You must practice the exact skill you want to improve.
• Sporting Example: A competitive swimmer focusing on the 50-metre freestyle sprint will train their upper body muscles (such as the latissimus dorsi and pectorals) using high-intensity anaerobic sprints, rather than spending hours doing gentle long-distance cycling.
2. Progressive Overload
Progressive overload means gradually increasing the demands placed on the body so that fitness adaptations continue to occur. The body adapts to stress over time; if the workload stays the same, fitness levels will plateau (level off). By increasing the workload in a safe, controlled manner, the body grows stronger, faster, or more efficient.
• Key Warning: The progression must be gradual. Overloading too quickly or too drastically leads to extreme fatigue, overtraining, and injury.
• Sporting Example: A distance runner might start by running 5 kilometres three times a week. After three weeks, once that feels comfortable, they progressively overload by increasing the distance to 6 kilometres per run.
3. Reversibility
Reversibility is often described as "use it or lose it". If an athlete stops training, or reduces their training workload significantly, their fitness adaptations will gradually disappear and fitness levels will drop.
• Why does it happen? Reversibility typically occurs due to injury, illness, off-season breaks, or a simple loss of motivation.
• Sporting Example: A footballer breaks an ankle and is forced to rest for eight weeks. During this period of inactivity, their muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance will decline, meaning they will need time to rebuild their baseline fitness once healed.
4. Tedium
Tedium refers to the boredom and mental fatigue that occurs when training is repetitive, monotonous, or uninspiring. When an athlete becomes bored, motivation drops, effort decreases, and performance suffers.
• How to overcome tedium: Coaches should introduce variety—such as changing training locations, using different drills, training with partners, or alternating between different training methods.
• Sporting Example: A rower who only trains on an indoor rowing machine every day may suffer from tedium. Their coach can prevent this by mixing in outdoor cycling, circuit training, and swimming sessions.
Quick Review Box: Principles of Training (SPORT)
• Specificity: Match training to the specific sport, muscles, and energy systems.
• Progressive Overload: Work the body harder than normal in a gradual, structured way.
• Reversibility: Fitness drops when training stops or reduces.
• Tedium: Boredom resulting from repetitive training; prevented with variety.
Section 2: Applying Overload – The FITT Principle
We know that athletes must use overload to improve, but how exactly do they make training harder without risking injury? They manipulate the four components of the FITT principle.
F – Frequency
Frequency refers to how often an athlete trains (e.g. the number of training sessions per week).
• How to overload: An athlete could increase their training sessions from 3 days per week to 4 days per week.
I – Intensity
Intensity refers to how hard the athlete works during each session.
• How to overload: A weightlifter might lift heavier weights; a runner might sprint at a higher percentage of their maximum heart rate; or a swimmer might reduce their rest intervals between laps.
T – Time
Time refers to how long an athlete spends exercising in a training session.
• How to overload: A continuous cyclist might increase the duration of their ride from 30 minutes to 45 minutes.
T – Type
Type refers to the specific method or activity chosen to train (e.g. continuous training, fartlek, interval, circuit, plyometrics, weight training, or static stretching).
• How to overload / prevent tedium: An athlete can switch or combine methods to target specific adaptations and keep training engaging, such as replacing a standard steady run with fartlek training to introduce hills and speed variations.
Exam Tip: Exam questions often ask: "Explain how a performer can use the FITT principle to achieve progressive overload." Always link the specific letter of FITT to a realistic sporting change (e.g. "A swimmer could increase their Frequency from training twice a week to three times a week").
---Section 3: Calculating Training Intensities and Zones
To apply the Intensity part of the FITT principle accurately, athletes calculate specific training boundaries. In the exam, you may be asked to calculate these values using plain-text formulas.
1. Training Thresholds
A training threshold is the boundary or target zone of exercise intensity that an athlete must reach to produce specific physiological adaptations in the body.
2. Maximum Heart Rate (Max HR)
Before finding your training zones, you must calculate your estimated maximum heart rate. The official formula is:
\(\text{Maximum Heart Rate (Max HR)} = 220 - \text{age}\)
• Example: For a 16-year-old GCSE student:
\(\text{Max HR} = 220 - 16 = 204\text{ beats per minute (bpm)}\)
3. Aerobic Training Zone
The aerobic training zone is defined as \(60\%\) to \(80\%\) of maximum heart rate.
• Purpose: Working in this zone improves cardiovascular endurance, aerobic power, and the efficiency of the heart, lungs, and working muscles to transport and use oxygen.
• Calculation Example (for a 20-year-old performer):
Step 1: Calculate Max HR \(\implies 220 - 20 = 200\text{ bpm}\)
Step 2: Calculate the lower threshold (\(60\%\)) \(\implies 200 \times 0.60 = 120\text{ bpm}\)
Step 3: Calculate the upper threshold (\(80\%\)) \(\implies 200 \times 0.80 = 160\text{ bpm}\)
Therefore, this performer's aerobic training zone is between \(120\text{ bpm}\) and \(160\text{ bpm}\).
4. Anaerobic Training Zone
The anaerobic training zone is defined as \(80\%\) to \(90\%\) of maximum heart rate.
• Purpose: Working in this zone improves anaerobic power, speed, and muscular tolerance to lactic acid.
• Calculation Example (for the same 20-year-old performer):
Step 1: Lower threshold (\(80\%\)) \(\implies 200 \times 0.80 = 160\text{ bpm}\)
Step 2: Upper threshold (\(90\%\)) \(\implies 200 \times 0.90 = 180\text{ bpm}\)
Therefore, this performer's anaerobic training zone is between \(160\text{ bpm}\) and \(180\text{ bpm}\).
5. Weight Training Intensities: One Rep Max (1RM)
One Rep Max (1RM) is the maximum amount of weight a person can lift successfully for a single repetition with correct technique. Depending on whether an athlete wants to build strength/power or muscular endurance, the intensity is calculated as a percentage of 1RM:
• For Strength and Power:
- Workload: Above \(70\%\) of 1RM
- Structure: Approximately 3 sets of 4 to 8 repetitions (heavy weights, low reps).
- Sporting Example: A rugby prop forward building maximal strength for the scrum.
• For Muscular Endurance:
- Workload: Below \(70\%\) of 1RM
- Structure: Approximately 3 sets of 12 to 15 repetitions (lighter weights, high reps).
- Sporting Example: A canoeist building endurance in their arms and shoulders to maintain a steady paddling stroke over a long race.
Section 4: Types of Training (The Closed Specification List)
AQA prescribes a specific, closed list of seven training methods. You must know the defining features, safe practice, and the advantages and disadvantages of each.
1. Continuous Training
• Defining Features: Steady-state exercise performed at a constant pace without any rest breaks. It must be performed for a minimum of 20 minutes within the aerobic training zone (\(60\text{--}80\%\) of Max HR). Common activities include running, cycling, swimming, and rowing.
• Energy System / Fitness Focus: Aerobic system; cardiovascular endurance.
• Advantages:
- Highly effective for developing aerobic endurance.
- Requires very little or no specialist equipment.
- Can be done individually or in groups almost anywhere.
• Disadvantages:
- Can cause tedium because it is repetitive.
- Does not improve anaerobic fitness, speed, or agility.
- Can lead to overuse injuries due to repetitive impact (e.g. shin splints from road running).
2. Fartlek Training
• Defining Features: A Swedish term meaning "speed play". It involves continuous exercise where the performer varies the speed, terrain, and work:recovery ratios. For instance, a runner may alternate between sprinting, jogging, walking, and running uphill across woodland or sand dunes.
• Energy System / Fitness Focus: Both aerobic and anaerobic systems.
• Advantages:
- Highly adaptable to team sports that involve mixed intensities (e.g. football, hockey, netball).
- The variety of terrain and paces reduces tedium.
- Easily tailored to individual fitness levels.
• Disadvantages:
- Performer must be self-motivated; it is easy to skip the hard sprint efforts.
- Difficult for a coach to monitor exact training intensity and progress across a squad.
3. Interval Training / HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training)
• Defining Features: Involves periods of hard, intense work interspersed with periods of rest or low-intensity recovery. A specific work-to-rest ratio is used (e.g. sprint for 20 seconds, walk for 40 seconds).
• Energy System / Fitness Focus: Primarily anaerobic (when working above \(80\%\) of Max HR), but can be adapted for aerobic conditioning.
• Advantages:
- Can burn calories and produce fitness gains in a relatively short amount of time.
- Trains the body to tolerate and clear lactic acid efficiently.
- Work-to-rest ratios can be precisely measured and adjusted to match specific sports.
• Disadvantages:
- High intensity can lead to extreme fatigue, nausea, or light-headedness.
- Higher risk of injury if the performer does not warm up properly or overtrains.
4. Circuit Training
• Defining Features: A series of exercises (known as stations) arranged in a specific order. Performers move from station to station, completing a set number of repetitions or exercising for a set period of time, with planned rest periods (the work:rest ratio). It requires careful planning of space and equipment.
• Crucial Rule for Station Design: Stations must be arranged so that the same muscle group is not worked at consecutive stations (e.g. follow push-ups with squats, not tricep dips), preventing premature muscle fatigue.
• Energy System / Fitness Focus: Aerobic or anaerobic, depending on the stations and work:rest ratios chosen.
• Advantages:
- Highly versatile: can target muscular endurance, strength, power, agility, or aerobic fitness.
- Accommodates large groups of performers in a limited space.
- Variety of stations helps prevent tedium.
• Disadvantages:
- Setting up equipment and stations can take a lot of time and space.
- Technique can deteriorate toward the end of the circuit as performers tire, increasing injury risk.
5. Weight Training
• Defining Features: Uses progressive resistance (free weights like dumbbells/barbells, or resistance machines) to develop muscular strength, power, or muscular endurance. The training focus is dictated by the weight chosen relative to the performer's One Rep Max (1RM):
- Strength/Power: Above \(70\%\) of 1RM, approx. 3 sets of 4–8 reps.
- Muscular Endurance: Below \(70\%\) of 1RM, approx. 3 sets of 12–15 reps.
• Safe Practice: Always use correct lifting technique, warm up thoroughly, and use spotters (training partners who assist and protect the lifter) when lifting heavy free weights.
• Advantages:
- Can target specific, isolated muscles or general muscle groups.
- Easy to calculate progress and apply progressive overload.
• Disadvantages:
- Free weights and machines can be expensive, and access to a gym may be required.
- Poor lifting form or lack of a spotter can lead to severe muscle tears or drop injuries.
6. Plyometric Training
• Defining Features: High-intensity exercises designed to develop explosive power. Exercises include bounding, hopping, and depth jumping (stepping off a box and immediately jumping upwards upon landing).
• How it works physiologically: The muscle undergoes an eccentric contraction (lengthening under tension upon landing), immediately followed by a rapid, larger concentric contraction (shortening explosively).
• Energy System / Fitness Focus: Anaerobic system; power and explosive strength.
• Advantages:
- Directly develops explosive power and speed.
- Requires minimal or no equipment (can use own body weight and basic boxes/hurdles).
- Highly relevant to sports requiring jumping and sprinting (e.g. basketball, long jump, high jump, volleyball).
• Disadvantages:
- Places very high stress on joints, tendons, and muscles.
- Not suitable for beginners or unconditioned performers due to high risk of injury.
7. Static Stretching
• Defining Features: A flexibility training method where a muscle is stretched to its furthest point (the point of mild discomfort) and held isometrically for up to 30 seconds.
• Safe Practice: Correct technique must be used; the performer must hold the stretch completely still and avoid over-stretching or bouncing (ballistic movement), which could cause muscle tears.
• Fitness Focus: Flexibility and suppleness.
• Advantages:
- Increases range of movement at joints.
- Safe, simple, and requires no specialist equipment.
- Can be done by anyone, anywhere.
• Disadvantages:
- Only develops flexibility; does not improve cardiovascular fitness, speed, or muscular strength.
- Can cause injury if forced past the point of gentle tension or held with poor alignment.
Section 5: Evaluating Training Methods for Aerobic vs Anaerobic Needs
In extended exam questions, you will often be asked to evaluate which training method is most suitable for a specific performer. To achieve full marks, you must link the demands of the sport to the features of the method.
Comparing Aerobic and Anaerobic Demands
• Marathon Runner:
- Primary Demand: Long-duration, steady-state, aerobic energy supply without fatigue.
- Best Method: Continuous training (running at \(60\text{--}80\%\) Max HR for over 20 minutes) because it directly replicates the continuous movement and develops cardiovascular endurance.
- Poor Choice: Plyometrics (develops explosive anaerobic power, which is not required for a marathon).
• 100-Metre Sprinter:
- Primary Demand: Pure explosive power and maximum anaerobic speed lasting under 12 seconds.
- Best Methods: Plyometrics (depth jumping and bounding to develop explosive leg power) and Weight training (heavy loads above \(70\%\) 1RM to build maximal force).
- Poor Choice: Continuous training (develops aerobic stamina, which will not help a 100m sprint).
• Games Player (e.g. Footballer, Rugby Player, Netballer):
- Primary Demand: Mixed aerobic (running for 60–90 minutes) and anaerobic (short, repeated sprints, tackles, and jumps).
- Best Methods: Fartlek training and Interval/HIIT because they combine high-intensity bursts with lower-intensity recovery, perfectly matching the stop-start nature of team games.
Summary Comparison Checklist:
• Aerobic Focus: Continuous training (running, swimming, rowing for \(20+\) mins).
• Anaerobic Focus: Interval/HIIT, Plyometrics, Heavy Weight Training (>70% 1RM).
• Combined / Mixed Focus: Fartlek training, Circuit training.
• Flexibility Focus: Static stretching (held still for up to 30 seconds).
Common Mistakes to Avoid in the Exam
• Confusing Progressive Overload with simple Overload: Just working hard is overload; gradually and safely increasing the workload over time is progressive overload.
• Mixing up Repetitions and Sets: A repetition (rep) is one single execution of an exercise. A set is a group of repetitions followed by a rest.
• Forgetting the 20-minute rule for Continuous Training: To qualify as continuous training, the steady-state work must last for a minimum of 20 minutes.
• Incorrect 1RM rules: Remember that strength/power uses heavy weights (above \(70\%\) 1RM) and low reps (4–8), whereas muscular endurance uses lighter weights (below \(70\%\) 1RM) and high reps (12–15).
• Bouncing during Static Stretching: Always state that static stretches are held still (isometric hold up to 30 seconds) and never bounced.