Specificity In Sports

Specificity:

Specificity is training to match the needs of the sport activity to improve skills and build muscles to help better your game in a particular sport.

Your training needs to be exactly the same as to what is expected of you in your event. For example if you are a soccer player then most of your training needs to be done on a soccer field with a ball and other players. Although cycling may be good for a soccer players overall endurance in the game, if he spent more time cycling than kicking a ball he would not be improving his skill levels needed.

In these next examples name 3 specific training needs each athlete should be doing in their training sessions, and explain why.

Eg. A Shot put thrower – bicep curls Shoulder press

- A netball player would use dumbbell bicep curls to strengthen the biceps and help improve shooting techniques as it would provide more strength to the ball. Shuttle runs would help improve footwork reactions and improve agility and endurance. Would also build strength in the leg muscles to provide more support for the body. Shooting practice would help improve accuracy and paired with the dumbbell bicep curls, more power would be executed to the ball. (M)

In todays lesson we will be using SPECIFICITY in our training programme, can you identify 3 specific drills or exercises you have completed that relate to helping you improve in the game of netball.

An example of Specificity today was shooting practice. (A)

It will help us in netball because when it comes to netball, the goal shooters have to practice shooting in order to become better at it and more accurate. This also helped improve technique as it would help us get used to shooting at different ranges in the shooters circle (the half circle). (M)

An example of Specificity today was vertical jumps or squat jumps.

We did squat jumps to strengthen the muscles in our legs, to give us more power and more stability we jumping to intercept the ball. (M)

An example of Specificity today was medicine ball chest throws. (A)

It will help us in netball because this would improve the power of a chest pass as that is the most commonly used pass in netball. This would also help improve the distance the ball is thrown because the actual netball will be lighter than the medicine ball, so if we use the same amount of strength used when throwing the medicine ball, the netball will travel a further distance. (M)

Progressive Overload:

Progressive overload is the gradual increase of force placed upon the body during exercise