| The training undertaken by athletes to improve performance is a complex process, which attempts to balance the need for progressively overloading the proper physiological systems with adequate recovery time. Without adequate recovery, the large volumes of progressive, high intensity training will fail to result in positive adaptations. Individual monitoring of athletes is an essential component to maintaining the balance between training and recovery. The first study showed that although there was good agreement between the training load (TL) prescribed by coaches and the TL executed by athletes, during sessions when a coach was not present 3 out of 6 athletes executed a higher than prescribed TL with a subsequent lower TL than prescribed during sessions when a coach was present. When looking at the group as a whole, these athletes completed 13.9% higher TL than planned during training sessions when the coach was absent, and 1.6% lower TL than planned during training sessions when the coach was present. The second study attempted to detect a threshold in TL or training monotony (M) in which athletes' subjective complaints (CI) increased significantly. Due to the proper periodization of training by the coaches, M was low and athletes were able to tolerate a high TL with low CI. The third study showed that when deliberately attempting to plan a monotonous training program, athletes tend to increase the amount of recovery time in an attempt to preserve the fine balance between training and recovery. Forty athletes were randomly assigned to either a polarized training group (PG, n = 21) or a monotonous training group (MG, n = 19). There was no significant difference between the groups for weekly TL (p = 0.54), M (p = 0.24), CI (p = 0.7), or weekly time trial performance ( p = 0.31). Both groups showed a significant improvement in performance over the 11-week period. The close monitoring of athletes is a practical strategy that can be employed to respect the balance between training and recovery in an attempt to avoid overreaching and/or overtraining. |
