The key's to fitness: Sports specific training

Knowing me so well one of my best mates sent me an article which included two of my favourite topics, the first one regarding the best premiership team, Wolves. The second was the sports specific training which is preparing them for the new season.

When you are training for your chosen sport you should look at the movements that are required for when you are playing. For example Wolves players are monitored during matches to see what distances they cover, how much of that distance they are sprinting and how much they are running. So Christophe Berra (Defender) covers 9k during a game but only 250 metres of that is a sprint, now the average footballer on the street is not open to this information but knowing your sport hopefully you can take a rough guess.

The question is if you only sprint 250 metres in a game then why would you train to anything more?

When we are looking at training for sport we should be looking to challenge the three planes of movement. Our bodies moves in three ways and they are:

Frontal plane - The frontal plane divides our body into a front and back movement with the front and back parts moving equally during an exercise. A good example is a jumping jack.

Sagittal - The sagittal plane divides our body into left and right halves of motion, this plane moves us backward and forward. A good example is a biceps curl or simply walking.

Transverse - The transverse plane is a diagonal or rotational movement. A good example would be a thoracic spinal twist to explain if you were standing still you may twist to look behind you.

A good functional training programme will include all three of these movements and if they can be combined then it can only be a bonus. Here is an example of an exercise that would cover two of your planes of movement:

Forward Lunge with Rotation - Stepping out into a lunge position and twisting through the upper body. The lunge is the sagittal movement and the twist is the transverse movement.

When it comes to training more than one of your planes of movement you will need to get creative with your exercises.

I hope this gives the sportsman and women out there something to think about when it comes to their training and how to condition themselves.