CAQ REVIEW
Sports Training Principles
Korey Kasper, MD
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Training means engaging in activity to improve performance
and/or fitness; this is best accomplished by understanding
general sports training principles: overload, reversibility, pro-
gression, individualization, periodization, and specificity.
Overload
Description: The exposure of tissues to greater than accustomed-
to training stress (1,2).
Concept: Challenging current fitness/performance levels
induces compensatory improvements (1). However, excessive
overload and/or inadequate rest can result in overtraining,
injury, and performance decrements (2).
Example: A jogger runs faster than her normal pace with
hopes of improving endurance.
Reversibility
Description: The observation that withdrawal of tissue
loading results in loss of beneficial fitness/performance
adaptations (1).
Concept: The body adapts to cessation of a specific ac-
tivity and inadequate training load with atrophy and fitness/
performance decrements (1).
Example: A body builder laments his loss of muscular gains
after taking a 2-wk vacation.
Progression
Description: The gradual and systematic increases in train-
ing stress to maintain tissue overload and, thus, provoke con-
tinued training adaptation (2).
Concept: As fitness/performance improves with training,
training variables (i.e., frequency, intensity, volume) must
be increased to induce further adaptation. Rate of pro-
gression is important; progressing too rapidly can result in
injury while progressing too slowly will delay goal at-
tainment (2).
NCC Military Sports Medicine Fellow, Uniformed Services University,
Bethesda, MD
Address for correspondence: Korey Kasper, MD, NCC Military Sports
Medicine Fellow, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814;
E-mail: korey.b.kasper.mil@mail.mil
Column Editor: Nailah Coleman, MD, FACSM; E-mail:
ncoleman@childrensnational.org.
1537-890X/1804/95Y96
Current Sports Medicine Reports
Copyright * 2019 by the American College of Sports Medicine
www.acsm-csmr.org
Copyright © 2019 by the American College of Sports Medicine. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.
Example: A weight lifter can comfortably lift a weight that
used to be a challenge, so she must now lift heavier weights to
continue gaining strength.
Individualization
Description: The modification of training to account for an
athlete’s unique capacity for and response to training (2,3).
Concept: A training program should acknowledge differ-
ences in an athlete’s capacity for adaptation from that of their
teammates, in order to ensure adherence to training princi-
ples for that individual; this capacity is affected by physio-
logic (e.g., age, current fitness, training history), psychologic
(e.g., effort, confidence), environmental (e.g., nutrition, life-
style habits), and genetic factors (2,3).
Example: The workout program for a freshman quarter-
back differs necessarily from that of a senior lineman on his
football team, based on individual differences.
Periodization
Description: The planned systematic and structural vari-
ation of a training program over time (1,4,5).
Concept: Constant cycling of training variables (activity,
rest, frequency, intensity, duration) within a training program
each day, week, and month aims to maintain optimal training
stimulus, address changing goals and individual variability,
and avoid overtraining, injury, and burnout; this is often
implemented using microcycles, mesocycles, and macrocycles
(training cycles within training cycles of increasing duration)
as a framework (1,4,5).
Example: A lacrosse team’s training program is altered across
macrocycles to keep adaptations aligned with the varying goals
of the preseason, in-season, and off-season (2,3).
Specificity
Description: The observation that fitness/performance
improves through training movement patterns and intensi-
ties of a specific task and fitness type (strength, power, en-
durance, or flexibility) (2).
Concept: Incorporating specific tasks of a sport will
induce neuromuscular and metabolic adaptations to im-
prove specific structure, fitness, and exercise economy of
the overloaded muscle groups (4). Training should be direct-
ed at improving the fitness/performance of a sport’s distinct
key components.
Example: While power athletes should train power and
endurance athletes should train endurance (e.g., swimmers
Current Sports Medicine Reports 95
should swim), team sports athletes require training with a
combination of these two types of fitness, as well as sport-
specific movements/skills (3).
References
1. Powers SK, Howley ET. The physiology of training: effect on VO2 max,
performance, homeostasis, and strength. In: Powers SK, Howley ET,
editors. Exercise Physiology: Theory and Application to Fitness and
Performance. 6th ed. New York (NY): McGraw-Hill; 2007. p. 261Y2.
96 Volume 18 & Number 4 & April 2019
Copyright © 2019 by the American College of Sports Medicine. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.
2. Hill JC. Aerobic training. In: Madden CC, Putukian M, Young CC, McCarty
EC, editors. Netter’s Sports Medicine. Philadelphia (PA): Saunders/Elsevier;
2010. p. 125Y6.
3. Burgess D. Training programming and prescription. In: Brukner P, Clarsen B,
Cook J, Cool A, Crossley K, Hutchinson M, McCrory P, Bahr R, Khan K,
editors. Brukner & Khan’s Clinical Sports Medicine: Injuries. 5th ed. Australia:
McGraw-Hill Education; 2017. p. 139Y40.
4. Vincent KR, Vincent HK, Seto CK. Basic principles of exercise training and
conditioning. In: O’Connor FG, Casa DJ, Davis BA, St. Pierre P, Sallis RE,
Wilder RP, editors. ACSM’s Sports Medicine: A Comprehensive Review.
Philadelphia (PA): Wolters Kluwer; 2013. p. 60Y2.
5. Paul S, Rand S, Stovak M, Hilgers MP. AMSSM Sports Medicine CAQ Study
Guide. Monterey (CA): Healthy Learning; 2012. [Question 8]. p. 152.
CAQ Review