It is important not to take a “forced break” from Sports Performance Training

Rationale on why it is important not taking a “forced break” from sports performance training: 

1. Preserving strength: Strength is the ability of the muscle to produce and exert force or torque at a specified or determined velocity (1) Strength is the basis of all underlying and essential part of increasing sport performance adaptations (2)  Strength does not guarantee that the athlete will be able to produce an increased amount of explosive power.  Conversely, the stronger an athlete is, there is an increased potential for the athlete to become improve force and velocity qualities.  
2. Maintenance of explosive power development: Power is defined as a work per unit of time [force x distance/time]. Velocity is defined as [distance/time], meaning that power can further be defined as (force x velocity) (3) Time is an essential element when training for explosive power.  Rate of force development (RFD) can be defined as the rate at which at which strength increases.  It is the most important trainable neural adaptation for athletes (4)    
3. Muscle Hypertrophy: Hypertrophy is the enlargement of a specific tissue or organ of in the body. When referencing hypertrophy, we usually are referring to the cross sectional size of the muscle tissues.  To achieve muscular hypertrophy or lean body mass, larger training volumes are need to achieve this training adaptation (5) 
4. Endurance/Conditioning: Endurance is the ability to resist fatigue, or produce work for an extended period of time.  Muscular endurance is the ability of the skeletal tissue to perform repeated contractions over time (6).  Furthermore, increasing muscular endurance has been shown to result in a positive transfer to cardiovascular and aerobic endurance (conditioning) (7).  Generally training for endurance adaptations requires lower intensities, accompanied by lower volumes unlike training for strength and power development.  

Due to the current health situation, it is imperative that we all do our part in staying home and practice social distancing. This doesn’t mean that your progress is lost or the social aspect of training needs to deteriorate. The workouts may look a little different for the next few weeks, but we have and will continue to develop training templates for you. The goal while we are apart is to prevent the above listed training adaptations to decay over time while we are not in the gym. We want you to be aware of the theory of “use it or lose it”, it applies here. The theory refers to the principles of brain plasticity, meaning that the brain will change physically, chemically, and functionally as you gain skills. This theory also applies when skills are not being used, you lose them. Training to increase physical qualities of increasing sport performance are skills you have acquired no matter the length of time you have been with Zelos Athletics. We are here for you guys throughout this whole process. Please feel free to reach out to for help with anything. Be safe!

1. Knuttgen HG, Kraemer WJ. Terminology and measurement in exercise performance. J Appl Sport Sci Res. 1987;1:1-10.
2. Kraemer WJ. Involvement of eccentric muscle action may optimize adaptations to resistance training. Sport Sci Exchange. 1992;4(41):230-238.
3. Siff MC, Verkoshansky YV. Supertraining. 4th ed. Denver, CO: Supertraining International; 1999.
4. Clark MA. Integrated Training for the New Millennium. Thousand Oaks, CA: National Academy of Sports Medicine; 2001.
5. Fleck SJ, Kraemer WJ. Designing Resistance Training Programs. 3rd ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics; 2004.
6. McCardle WD, Katch FI, Katch VI. Exercise Physiology: Energy, Nutrition, and Human Performance. 4th ed. Baltimore, MD: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins :1996
7. Stowers T, McMillian J, Scala D, et al. The short-term effects of three different strength-power training methods. NSCA J. 1983;5:24-27