Fad45s and others have blurred the lines between sports performance and conventional training in order to sell more franchises, and recruit an assembly line of superficial zombie trainers. The owner of F45 and the celebrities they use to market their business probably care as much about your health and performance as KFC do about your diet and nutrition. (at least KFC are transparent.
In order to bring some clarity back to sports performance training we have put together a bite sized summary of what sports performance training is and why you should take the Hollywood actor ambassadors and social media influencers with a grain of salt.
Sports performance training is designed specifically to increase performance and minimise injury for general sports performance as well as specialised sports performance.
Sports performance training is different from fitness and bodybuilding training in that the end goal is not to look better but to improve athletic performance.
Generalised sports performance training focuses on improving skills such as muscular strength, power, speed, agility, core strength, balance, stability, coordination, hip, ankle, shoulder mobility, recovery and motor skills.
Specialised sports performance training focuses on getting an athlete ready for the demands of a specific sport and is much more narrow in focus. For example a discuss thrower must train to develop lots of power and strength to throw a discuss in a rotational motion. The ability to run long distance or having high amounts of muscular endurance or aerobic fitness is not only not needed it can actually hamper performance for a discuss thrower.
For a soccer player however an emphasis on aerobic fitness, plus the ability to change direction while running at speed is most important. Being very strong but with no endurance would hamper soccer performance. For both examples no attention is paid to how well the athlete looks with their shirt off or in a bikini.
If you were to look at all the different disciplines and movement patterns of an athletic event from discuss, hammer throw, high jump, long jump, javelin and then picture a shot putter lining up to start the 100 meter race!
How different would that person's training be compared to the sprinter, and would some of their training in the gym cross over? Absolutely it would. The same applies for a prop forward and a rugby wing. All these positions within a team and individual sport require specific skill sets, and to be on top of your game you need to master these skills with bespoke training.
To find out what the best mix of training is for your sport, requires an "otaku" approach to research, creativity and an open mind, trial and error, experience and a passion to find what works best for each individual.
For more information on our training methods contact the team on sportspeed@me.com or check out our website www.sportspeed.com.au and instagram @sportspeedpi
Nathan McKay (owner sportspeed physical intelligence)
