Athletic Development: Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning

Athletic Development offers a rare opportunity to learn and apply a career full of knowledge from the best. World-renowned strength and conditioning coach Vern Gambetta condenses the wisdom he's gained through more than 40 years of experience of working with athletes across sports, age groups, and levels of competition, including members of the Chicago White Sox, New York Mets, and U.S. men's 1998 World Cup soccer team.

The result is an information-packed, myth-busting explanation of the most effective methods and prescriptions in each facet of an athlete's physical preparation. Gambetta includes never-before-published and ready-to-use training approaches in

sport-specific demands analysis,
work capacity enhancements,
movement skills development,
long- and short-term training program progressions, and
rest and regeneration techniques.
Athletic Development explains what works, what doesn't, and why. Gambetta's no-nonsense approach emphasizes results that pay off in the competitive season and reflect his work at the highest echelons of sport. Merging principles of anatomy, biomechanics, and exercise physiology with sports conditioning applications and four decades of professional practice, this is the definitive guide to performance-enhancing training.

Part I. Elements of a Training System
Chapter 1. A Functional Conditioning Framework
Chapter 2. Factors Affecting Athletic Movement
Chapter 3. Sport-Specific Demands Analysis
Chapter 4. Options and Methods of Testing
Chapter 5. Strategies for Performance Training
Chapter 6. Program Planning and Fine-Tuning

Part II. Physical Contributors to Performance
Chapter 7. Energy and Work Capacity
Chapter 8. Movement Aptitude and Balance
Chapter 9. The Critical Body Core
Chapter 10. Full-Spectrum Strength
Chapter 11. Integrated Power Training
Chapter 12. Linear and Multidimensional Speed
Chapter 13. Multi-Phase Performance Preparation
Chapter 14. Recovery and Regeneration

Vern Gambetta is currently the director of Gambetta Sports Training Systems. He served as the director of athletic development for the New York Mets (2004-2005), speed and conditioning coach for the Tampa Bay Mutiny major league soccer team (1996, 1997, and 1999), conditioning consultant to the U.S. men's 1998 World Cup soccer team and the New England Revolution (1998), and director of conditioning for the Chicago White Sox. Gambetta has also worked with the Canadian men's and women's national basketball teams and the Chicago Bulls. Recognized internationally as an expert in training and conditioning for sport, Gambetta has lectured extensively and conducted clinics in Canada, Japan, Australia, and Europe.

The body is always seeking to maintain a state of homeostasis so it will constantly adapt to the stress from its environment. Training is simply the manipulation of the application of stress and the body's subsequent adaptation to that stress to maintain homeostasis. The adaptation that occurs is fairly predictable. In training the desired adaptive response is called supercompensation.

The supercompensation model is still the most straightforward representation of the training process. I use it as a conceptual basis for the construction of my training sessions and microcycles as well as construction of mesocycles. The process is predictable and quantifiable once you have developed your training system.

Supercompensation is a four-step process. The first step is the application of a training or loading stress and the body's subsequent reaction to this training stress, which is fatigue or tiring. There is a predictable drop-off in performance because of that stress. Step 2 is the recovery phase. This can be a lighter training session, a recovery session, or active rest. As a result of the recovery period, the energy stores and performance will return to the baseline (state of homeostasis) represented by the point of the application of the original training stress. Step 3 is the supercompensation phase. This is the adaptive rebound above the baseline; it is described as a rebound response because the body is essentially rebounding from the low point of greatest fatigue. This supercompensation effect is not only a physiological response but also a psychological and technical response. The last step in the process is the loss of the supercompensation effect. This decline is a natural result of the application of a new training stress, which should occur at the peak of supercompensation. If no training stress is applied, there will also be a decline. This is the so-called detraining phenomenon.

Different physical qualities respond at different rates, so it is misleading to think that there's one generalized supercompensation curve. Essentially each physical quality has its own individual supercompensation curve. These differences in timing for supercompensation are due to the duration of the various biological regeneration processes that take place during the recovery phase. The replenishment of creatine phosphate will take only a few seconds to a couple of minutes to return to normal levels, but the glycogen-reloading process in the muscle may last 24 hours; in some cases, it may last even longer. The production of new enzymes (proteins) may also take hours, sometimes even days, to complete (Olbrecht 2000). The art is designing these curves of adaptation so that they coincide at the proper time. Working out the timing of the various components is possibly the most difficult aspect of planning. It is as much an art as it is a science. The best way to perfect this is with practice.

In supercompensation the athlete can handle the same training load or a greater load with ease in the subsequent workouts if recovery is adequate and the new stress is timed properly. This adaptive phenomenon is an ongoing wavelike process. If all the variables are manipulated correctly and the proper ratio of work to recovery is achieved, the result is a continually rising sinusoidal curve pointed toward higher-level performance.