Physical preparation in training Individual sports players

1. Physical preparation in the training stages

Justification of physical preparation in formative stages

Physical preparation is currently considered one of the most determining factors in training in the athlete's training stages. There are two basic reasons that justify this statement.

The harmonious and optimal body development is one of the priority objectives in the training of the athlete from the initiation stages to the achievement of high performance.

In high-level handball, conditional capacities are increasingly determining for performance to the point that some authors affirm that success depends largely on them. Consequently, if we want the athlete in training to reach their maximum physical potential in the future, it will be absolutely necessary to train properly on the conditional plane. In fact, there are physical capacities that, if not trained at the right time and in the right way, will be difficult to recover in the future.

From this approach, the need to integrate physical preparation into the athlete's training plan is total, valuing conditional training as a fundamental aspect that requires special treatment to develop the athlete's full potential.

This relevance of physical preparation as well as the need to integrate it into sports planning is corroborated by numerous authors and coaches, however in practice, in the daily work of coaches, physical preparation is often neglected for different reasons: lack time, search for short-term results, absence in sports planning, ignorance of the importance of physical capacities in the development of the athlete, Proof of this are the teams that in initiation stages already carry out tactical movements or defences structured in the image and likeness of senior teams, a clear symptom of a training focused exclusively on technical-tactical aspects and an absolute neglect of the other training factors. These highly successful teams (in terms of results) in the infant, cadet and sometimes youth stages rarely make it past these levels. Ignorance and / or the search for immediate results on the part of these coaches are, in general, the origin of these problems.

2.Approach to physical preparation in the training of athletes

The focus in the sports training stages should always be educational regardless of the area in which we find ourselves federated teams, recreation, physical education. The fact of dedicating more or less time to training in the training process does not in any way mean abandoning the educational path but quite the opposite: if we dedicate more hours and effort to the training process, we will be attending to all the important needs of the same and, in addition, we will promote learning in optimal conditions of motivation, rhythm and cooperation between students in order to achieve objectives.

In our opinion, the search for high performance in athletes in training is a direct consequence of the coaches and not of the environment in which it is applied. The coach must NEVER give up victory but MUST BE AWARE that the educational and sporting goals of each stage take precedence over the results. Of course, the achievement of the training objectives entails the substantial improvement of the game and, as a consequence, of the team's results, but it takes time. However, looking for immediate results requires training efficient solutions in the short term that will be detrimental to adequate training on a sports and personal level.

When a coach is guided solely by sporting results, he renounces all kinds of general tasks and focuses exclusively on sport-specific exercises, limiting the child in capacities that are difficult to recover in the future.

Conditional training will be completely different depending on characteristics such as biological age, motor development, previous practice, ... Training cannot be kept out of the physical and mental changes suffered by athletes, moreover, it must adhere to the characteristics of the development phase in which they are located.

Sensitive phases for the development of different capacities: these are the periods in which the organism is more receptive to a certain type of stimulus.

3. The need to plan physical preparation in training

Given the great importance of physical capacities in the training of the athlete, a long-term teaching planning that takes into account physical preparation as its essential content will be absolutely necessary.

Coaches and physical trainers currently have great information regarding sports planning in team sports and, more specifically, planning physical preparation in team sports. Likewise, different prestigious authors have developed long-term training programs for the training of athletes. However, this proliferation at a theoretical level does not manifest itself in the daily practice of training. Most sports schools and clubs with lower-level teams suffer from well-structured long-term planning and sometimes also annual planning.

The need to plan physical preparation in training stages is accentuated if we take into account that the training of capacities related to the neuromuscular system, such as speed or coordination, will determine to a large extent the quality of these capacities in the future. Deals with the most important physical abilities in the game. If we do not train these capacities correctly, we will make a big mistake because they will not be able to be fully recovered in later stages since they are capacities with little room for improvement in adults. Therefore, we can say that conditional capacities together with motor skills are factors of great importance in the training of the athlete.

These statements are not intended to downplay the cognitive mechanisms, so decisive in the game and so little considered in traditional conditional training. In practice, it will be observed how the tasks or exercises involve the three functioning mechanisms in different percentages.

4. Previous study

The first step before starting to train any team is to gather as much information as possible about the team's situation, the surrounding context, the most recent history, the resources available, etc. It is evident that some of these factors can greatly influence the behaviour and attitude of athletes as well as their level of training. In this line, the training notebooks or the knowledge of the type of training carried out to date will be very useful.

This is an aspect related to general planning but it can significantly influence aspects related to physical preparation. For example, if the team's previous training sessions have focused only on specific technical-tactical content, it will be logical to find a certain degree of rejection towards other types of exercises further away from handball. In the same way, the fact that previous coaches gave little importance to flexibility entails not only a low level of it but also negative attitudes towards it and no knowledge of the benefit it brings. The importance of these aspects lies in the fact that "knowing the origin of the problem we will find the most adequate and quick solution".

Regarding the knowledge of the level of training of athletes, we must collect information based, above all, on the execution of exercises and games that allow us to access their level in the different game factors and, punctually, through tests of all kinds.

Finally, it will be useful to complete this information with some specific characteristics of the template, we highlight some.

5. Sensitive phases of development of physical capacities

Various authors highlight the stages in which the athlete is more receptive to certain stimuli, that is, if we want to obtain the best benefits with respect to certain capacities, we must apply the stimuli at the appropriate times.

In our opinion, the sensitive phases should be a reference to advise the training of certain capacities during certain stages and, in no case, a strict delimitation that does not allow the training of other capacities or its variation. We remember that the most important capabilities of our sport must prevail over any other criteria. In this sense, the creation of an early special foundation should not be feared, because individual functional potential, the ability to adapt to certain stimuli is more important than age (Ruiz, 2000), we are talking about an oriented multilateralism.

However, technical-tactical training or the game itself are not enough to correctly stimulate the body and, therefore, we must look for other means and tasks to achieve physical development and physiological adaptations desired.

5. The training of physical capacities in the formative stages

Taking into account the development of the player, the characteristics of the growth, the sensitive phases of the physical capacities and the specific characteristics of the sport, we made our approach about the training of the different physical capacities in the different stages of training.

First, we outline the training of the different physical capacities in relation to the different formative stages.