Introduction to the Theory of Sports Training

i. Athletic Performance Goals
Every coach’s goal is to develop his athletes to a level where they will be able to achieve record times. Unfortunately, not every individual can become a World Champion. In fact the odds for a club coach to find, keep, and properly prepare a future champion for the time necessary for his talent development are fairly slim. Actually, just identifying a proper talent is already a success, and taking this talent to the level of his absolute peak potential is yet a separate challenge in itself.

On the other hand, almost every healthy individual has the potential to reach competition at national level. The truth is that to develop a champion from an “average” (yet committed) athlete is much more difficult than making a champion from a true talent. Unlike working with exceptionally gifted athletes, the preparation protocols and training discipline for a typical athlete in your group must be much more precise and allow a very narrow margin of error, especially when approaching the top level of individual performance. In the real world the majority of your athletes will
come from that group, and your career success will most likely depend not on finding the next Michael Phelps or Alex Popov, but on your ability to take EVERY athlete in your group to their
maximum individual potential.

ii. The Main Principles of Training
If you learn to understand an athlete’s needs and convert them into a properly designed training plans, you will become a successful coach. Our course is designed to teach you the
methods that will allow you to manage the training process for each individual athlete with maximum precision. Yet another goal of this course is to arm you with the knowledge that will allow you to evaluate emerging training theories, appreciate their value, and find ways to incorporate their best ideas into your training plans and program.

To accomplish these goals we need to define the structure and methods for formalization (unification) of different terms, training methods, elements of the training process as well as ways to predict and evaluate each athlete reaction to specific stresses (known as standard exercises). This is important because the absence of classification and formalization of training terms, means and tools creates chaos and the inability to process information contained within specific training suggestions.