On Exercise Training Plans

Author: Tian Maikou
Editor-in-Chief: Dong Yingshuang / et al.
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-05-10
Features:
Excerpt: Training Plan and Its Role in Sports Training
1. Definition of a Training Plan
For a concept, people often provide several different meanings from different perspectives, and the same applies to the concept of a training plan. Here, based on the theoretical attributes of the training plan and its role in achieving goals, we provide the following two definitions.
1. A training plan is a theoretical design made in advance for the future training process.
Any work or behavior that requires preparation should be thought through and specifically arranged before it begins. This kind of thinking and arrangement before the work proceeds or the behavior is implemented belongs to a theoretical design. The training plan, in fact, is such a theoretical design made in advance before the training process begins. Without a doubt, a training plan should have as accurate foresight as possible. However, the operation of the training process is constrained and influenced by various internal and external factors. It is difficult to make completely accurate predictions of the diverse changes in these factors, and many of them are beyond our complete control or even fundamentally uncontrollable. Therefore, the theoretical design made in advance often needs to be adjusted and changed in a timely manner based on changes in subjective and objective conditions. It must be emphasized that although we plan to make necessary adjustments and changes during implementation, we should still, and must, formulate a complete training plan before the training process begins. At the same time, we should make as accurate predictions as possible of the changes in subjective and objective conditions that may occur during the training process and strive to design control strategies. As the ancients said, "Forethought ensures success, while lack of it leads to failure." Formulating a well-designed training plan is an important aspect of "forethought" in training activities.
2. A training plan is a state transition pathway chosen to achieve training goals.
The ultimate goal of sports training is to create excellent athletic performance in competitions, but its direct goal is to improve athletes' competitive ability. The process of sports training is the process of the development and change of athletes' competitive ability. Here, if we understand the change of things as a transfer of state, we can also express the change of athletes' competitive ability as a transfer of their competitive ability state, i.e., a transfer from an initial state to a target state. (Figure 1-1) shows that during the training process from t1 to t2, there are multiple pathways available to achieve the transfer of athletes' competitive ability state from P1 to P2, such as those shown as a, b, and c in the figure. The work of the coach in formulating a training plan is a choice made to achieve the target state, which is an important decision in the training process.