Sleep Benefits

Sleep duration and patterns can affect sports training and performance. Most people need 7 or 8 hours of sleep, and your body functions at its best when you have regular sleep patterns, generally sleeping at about the same time every night. So if your workouts, practices, or competitions aren´t going well, consider whether you´re getting enough sleep.

Cautions with Sit-ups

Full sit-ups can be a problem because the hip flexors attach to the lower spine, so doing a lot of sit-ups can cause or worsen low back pain. This is why crunches, which engage the abdominals but do not involve the hip flexors, are usually recommended. Crunches are safe for most people, but you should never do any exercise that causes pain.

Overreaching, Overtraining

Overreaching symptoms are the first sign you're doing too much exercise or sports training. You may feel fatigued, lose enthusiasm for working out, not perform well, or have lingering colds. Athletes who work out twice a day are especially at risk. If you cut way back on your training, you may recover in 2 or 3 weeks. If you push through, you may reach an chronic overtraining condition, which can take up to a year for full recovery. Check with your coach or doc to help evaluate whether you're doing too much.

Visualization

An important skill for any athlete is visualization. You can improve your technique and performance by visualizing your golf swing, tennis stroke, competitive dive, etc., the way it should be. Many runners and swimmers do mental drills--they visualize the whole race the way they plan to do it. Visualization may also help speed recovery from injury, as you visualize the tissues healing faster.

Vertical Jump

If you participate seriously in a sport that requires jumping, such as basketball or volleyball, don´t do too much long distance running. This type of exercise emphasizes different muscle action and can reduce your vertical jump height.

Train Your Mind

Training your mind for sports is almost as important as training your body. Mental conditioning is often the difference between winning and losing or a good performance and a poor one. If you need to calm yourself down for your event, practice deep breathing or centering. Visualize your successful performance to heighten concentration. Use your imagination to psyche yourself up with whatever works best for you.

Energy Systems

Most sports, especially team sports, are anaerobic, with short bursts of activity. The aerobic energy system doesn´t kick in until 3-5 minutes of continuous activity. Train the energy system you need for your sport.

Football and basketball players, for instance, need to do short-to-moderate sprints and intervals, and have little need to run long distances.

Aerobic sports, like long distance running, endurance cycling, distance swimming, triathlon, mountaineering, etc. require long, sustained training routines.

Soccer players benefit from aerobic training, and tennis can have both aerobic and anaerobic components, depending on how you play.

Medicine Balls

If you participate in an explosive sport, like basketball, football, baseball, etc., look into medicine ball drills to improve your explosive power.

Sports Stretching

Stretching to improve your flexibility can improve your sports performance. For instance, if you are more flexible and have greater range of motion, your tennis racket or the head of your golf club will travel farther, increasing the force with which it impacts the ball.

In-season Weights

You need to schedule some weight training even during sports season. Especially for women athletes, just doing your sport won´t maintain strength, and you will need that toward the end of the season. But keep these workouts minimal, as hard training will break you down further than your sport already does. One set of 15 to failure, per body part, should be enough for maintenance during the season.

Training Lateral Movement

Many sports require lateral (sideways) motion. To build strength for those movements, try doing drills that include squat or lunge-type movements to the side. Maintain good technique with your chest up and shoulders back, and don´t let your knee flex beyond your toes.

Using Massage

Massage can be a great addition to your training routine, but make sure you get the right kind of massage. Somebody who specializes in sports massage is probably your best bet. Avoid getting a deep tissue massage the day before an event, or you may be too sore to do your best. And self- massage is better than no massage.

Recovery Time

UC Berkeley Wellness Letter has a great sports conditioning test. To measure your fitness, check the time it takes your heart rate to return to its resting value after strenuous exercise.

First, cool down. Then, after 1 minute, your heart rate should fall by about 12 beats per minute. The quicker the better, usually 1-3 minutes. If it takes longer, you can improve your fitness through vigorous aerobic exercise training.

Training for Women Athletes

Women athletes suffer more injuries, especially to the knee, than men. Hormonal and biomechanical reasons have been proposed to explain this, but new research indicates lack of conditioning may be the key. Women typically do not have the same amount of experience with fitness and sports as men, because they have only recently been given encouragement and opportunity to participate.

Women athletes, no matter how talented, should work on general conditioning before getting heavily involved in their sport.

Specific Training for Triathletes

Do your triathlon training in conditions as close to those of the race as you can. If the running part is going to be on trails or roads, don´t train on the track. If the swimming is in a lake or ocean, do at least some of your swimming drills there. And do your bike riding on hills or flats, as appropriate. Even if you live where it´s flat, you can train for hills by riding road overpasses and riding into wind.

Massage for Baseball Players

Many athletes find that massage helps them relax and loosens their muscles. Baseball players do a lot of sprinting, changing direction, and quick throwing, which can stress the joints and tighten the muscles. Along with a good stretching program, massage can help retain or improve range of motion. Some players will feel that massage helps more than others do. It's important to find a massage therapist trained in sports massage.

Rotator Cuff Training

Train your rotator cuff especially if you participate in swimming, racket, or throwing sports. The rotator cuff comprises four small muscles that stabilize the shoulder and is trained easily by doing some range-of-motion exercises with light dumbbells or exercise tubing.

High Altitude Sports

Skiing requires preparation beyond checking the weather up there. If you are going to ski, climb, or otherwise exercise at altitudes over 5000 ft, get to the higher altitude as early as you can and give yourself time to acclimatize before vigorous exercise. Two days should be your minimum conditioning time if you are going to compete.