Friday, February 17, 2012

Evaluative Summary Blog

There are many people who participate in strength and power training to help them improve in their sport. The article “Transfer of Strength and Power Training to Sports Performance” by Warren B. Young explains and gives examples of how strength and power training should be used to improve sports performance in things such as sprinting, how the training physically transfers to performance in sports, and how people could use the different types of exercises to train. This article was published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, which is an actual scientific journal. Also, a lot of the research Young talks about in the article has been cited from other studies and research. The article “Transfer of Strength and Power Training to Sports Performance” is a well written scientific article that gives good examples of how strength and power training can transfer to one’s performance in sports, how it everything actually works physically, and how one can apply the training.
            The first topic discussed in the article was how strength and power training should be used to improve performance in sports. The article used sprinting as the example of a sport since many sports involve sprinting in some way or another. This section of the article gave good examples of strength and power training exercises and how they would affect your performance. One example that was used was “to achieve a 2.2% gain in sprint performance a 21% improvement in squat strength was required” (Young). This shows that one must work to increase their strength in order to improve their sprint performance. Some of the exercises stated in the article that were used in the training to increase strength were various squats and pulling exercises. The article also stated that some findings “reported that 8 weeks of plyometric training including some unilateral/horizontal exercises induced significant improvements in sprint time to 10 m” (Young). This shows that multiple training exercises can be used to help one improve their performance in sports.
            The second topic that the article talks about was how the training and the transfer to performance works physically. Young states in the article how the muscles and the nervous system have to work together to reach the end result of the desired performance. The article states that with resistance training, “negative transfer could occur if there is increased coactivation of antagonist muscles because this would produce force that opposes the intended movement direction”, or a “positive transfer can occur if resistance training reinforces the optimum muscle-activation patterns that are required in the execution of the sport skill” (Young). This is a good explanation because it allows the reader to recognize that one has to be careful when training because the exercise could either hurt or help one’s performance depending on whether the exercise is appropriate to be doing. The positive or negative transfer could be achieved by either “increased excitatory neural activation of muscles that contribute to skillful performance and/or by inhibition of muscles that can degrade performance” (Young). These examples from the article show that the author had a clear understanding of the physiological processes that go along with training and transferring it to the performance in a sport.
            The third topic discussed in the article was how people could use the different types of exercises to train. In this section of the article, examples of training exercises such as bench-press and pull-over exercises were given and examples of what they could improve, such as throwing velocity, were also given. Young also mentions how strength training can reduce the risk of injury from sports. The information in this section of the article showed that the author has a good amount of knowledge on strength training and what the benefits of the training and certain exercises can give.
            The article “Transfer of Strength and Power Training to Sports Performance” by Warren B. Young was written well. The examples and explanations that the author gave in the article gave the impression that the author had knowledge of the topics being discussed and would be a credible source for information. The tone and style of the article also helped to bring credibility to the author and the information given in the article.
           

Bibliography


Young, Warren B. "Transfer of Strength and Power Training to Sports Performance." International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance (2006): 74-83.

2 comments:

  1. This is very good information a really nice blog. keep it up!!!

    sports physical kingston

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  2. This is very educational content and written well for a change.fitness trainer It's nice to see that some people still understand how to write a quality post!

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