New Year new you Fergus is sports speciific

Jan 11 2013 by Lorraine Howard, Irvine Herald

Have you ever noticed these days how sports stars and athletes are hitting harder, throwing further, jumping higher, running faster and generally have much higher endurance levels?

Yes, there have being huge strides in the advance of technology but one of the fundamental aspects of performance comes from sport specific training.

Let’s take Tiger Woods for example. Now you might think golf was not a game which you would associate rigorous fitness training – but a huge part of Tiger’s massive success was down to his exceptional fitness.

When he wasn’t playing practice rounds, he would regularly be in the gym with his personal trainer.

Sport specific training is exactly what the name suggests.

So if you play hockey then your training will be different to say, a basketball player. It’s all about how your body works and moves during your specific sport.

It’s looking at the plains of movement that replicate muscle and joint action in relation to that sport.

If we look at a hockey player, how they pass and shoot during a game, would sitting on a fixed resistance machine really benefit them, or would it be more beneficial and sport specific doing things such as wood chops?

Of course the wood chops would be much more beneficial as they replicate more of the hockey movement.

Energy systems are vitally important too. If we look at footballers during 90 minutes, are they running non-stop for that whole time?

No, they are maybe walking or lightly jogging for short spells then have bursts of speed for short spells, so interval training as opposed to going out a long slow duration jog would be more sport specific.

There’s no doubt that the right sport specific training will make your performance better in 2013.

Why not give it a go?