Fitness
Fitness is an interesting topic. Its definition often depends on who you’re talking to.
Ask someone with no training or sporting background and they might say anyone with low body fat and/or a bit of muscle is fit. But are they?
And fit for what? Running? Wrestling? Swimming? Boxing? Olympic lifting? Triathlon? Tennis? An ultramarathon? Skiing? Surfing?
Is the work capacity required to excel in these sports the same? Where does VO2max fit in? What about variations of the same sport or activity?
For example, track or cross country running? Amateur or professional wrestling? Pool or ocean swimming? Amateur or professional boxing? Sprint, Olympic distance or ironman triathlon? Single or doubles tennis and on what court surface? Slalom or cross country skiing? Wave pool surfing or big wave surfing?
If athletes are considered fit, how do you explain most Rugby players as an example, going surfing and being exhausted after 15 mins of paddling? Or swimmers exhausted after a boxing session? Or boxers exhausted after 6 minutes with a skilled wrestler?
The answer is found in the SAID Principle. SAID is the acronym for Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. Put simply, the body will adapt specifically (think neurally, biomechanically, cardiovascularly, and so on) to the training demands imposed upon it.
It’s here things get interesting for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, not all sports are able to execute in training as they are in competition and secondly, even if they can be, all training that is not the actual sport during competition, is not specific.
Let’s start with the first point. Obviously not all sports can execute in training as they do in competition for a range of reasons including exhaustion and injury.
A boxer isn’t going spar at 100% intensity every session. A marathon runner isn’t going to run a marathon every time he/she trains. A rugby league team isn’t going to play full out for 80 mins at training each session.
Therefore training must be modified which as a byproduct diminishes its specificity. This is not good or bad, it just is. It’s the cumulation of decisions you make in these training sessions that influence your results being on track or otherwise.
Secondly, of the sports that can be executed in training as they are in competition, there’s a view it’s not specific because it’s not the actual competition. It’s not ‘game day’ so to speak. The nerves are different. Your family and friends are not cheering you on. You’re not putting your event or discipline together from start to finish at ‘race pace’. You haven’t set your training program up for a peak performance. You didn’t have to travel overseas or stay in a hotel in the days leading up to the event/competition. The list goes on.
If you listen you’ll hear athletes in a wide range of sports all over the world say ‘there’s no fitness like being…
‘Match fit’
‘Paddle fit’
‘Game fit’
‘Race fit’
And so on.
What they are expressing is the subtle difference between training and competition.
There’s an intriguing parallel with this concept and something Shihan Cameron Quinn shared with me in Kyokushin Karate. ‘Kihon’ is the Japanese word for ‘basics’ or the training of basic techniques including punches, kicks, blocks, elbows and knee strikes as examples. ‘Ido-kihon’ is the Japanese word for ‘moving basics’ and ‘Kumite’ is the Japanese word for ‘sparring’. There are different levels of sparring from pre-arranged to full-contact no holds barred sparring.
Intriguingly the philosophy that all Kyokushin Karate training outside of an actual fight is ‘kihon’ and essentially non-specific. Shadow boxing, pad work, conditioning drills, fitness circuits, hill sprints, partner drilling and sparring are all kihon because they are not the actual fight.
Importantly, while they are not specific, they often have benefits that transfer to the fight. This nuance between specificity and transfer being a critical point.
“Ultimately, the purpose of non-specific training should be to develop qualities that transfer to the competitive activity, yet cannot be developed effectively by playing the sport. An excellent example is strength training. The exposure to load that occurs in strength training many not be specific, but can have a high transfer to most sports.”1
“Don’t waste your time and effort by attempting to replicate the sporting needs. Play the sport to achieve these. Save your training time and energy to develop the high transfer qualities.”2
Pockets of the martial arts have figured this out through generations of trial and error.
Fortunately, you don’t have to invest generations of your time. You can learn from that history and most importantly learn from personal experience. That said, general principles such as the more skill based your sport is (technically and tactically) the greater the need to employ the SAID Principle in your training. The greater your training age (not your biological age, instead how many years you’ve been training/competing in your sport) the greater the need to employ the SAID principle in your training. The reverse is also true.
How you develop the work capacity required for optimal performance in your sport is a blend of what Tudor Bompa called ‘athlete preparation’ (technical, tactical, physical and psychological training) in his 1983 textbook titled The Theory and Methodology of Training.
If you’re involved in sport, you’ll want precision around this. If your interperatition is off, so might be your outcomes.
1. King, I., 1997, Winning and Losing, p. 34
2. King, I., 1997, Winning and Losing, p. 34
