The Sports Development Continuum also known as the performance pyramid is a model that represents a person’s involvement in sport by what stage they are at. Also this highlights the route a performer can take to become an elite athlete.

Foundation Stage

The foundation stage is the bottom of the pyramid and represents beginner sin sport. It contains younger children who may not understand all rules of the game. It is aimed at developing basic skills and movement for example a pass in football. Important habits are instilled at this stage such as the right techniques, skills and movement, this is to ensure that people can travel to the next stage, the participation stage. The foundation stage is usually introduced to children in schools via p.e lessons. For example football is a popular sport and introduced to many children in primary school as it is easy to get into due to the demand and publicity making it popular, lots of pitches are around the country to play and there are lots of amateur teams making it attractive.

Participation Stage

The participation stage is usually people who participate in sport regularly; people gain positive experiences from sport as it is healthy and enjoyable. Also sport is used to socialise meaning it is easy to get into and meet new people. People participate in sport by their own choice and also participate to develop their own skills, usually people are at this stage when they play for their school team or play for an amateur team. An example of this would be somebody playing for their school basketball team, or possibly playing for a local team such as Bury Bulldogs this person would be taking an interest in basketball and playing for enjoyment and possibly to win, they could possibly be looking to move onto the performance stage at a higher level.

Performance Stage

The performance level consists of anyone involved in sport who aims to improve their skills and plays to win. Usually the athlete receives coaching as they show talent. The athlete will show commitment to their sport, attend training and try their hardest; this ensures they perfect their skills. Usually an athlete at the performance stage will compete at a high standard at their club or at a regional standard. Athletes at this level may want to go onto the excellence stage. An example of this would be if an athlete was a cyclist who raced for his county or a team such as Vsprint and was looking to become professional. He would attend training and race to a high level, possibly semi-professional.

Excellence Stage

The excellence stage is where skilled performers aim to set standards that are measurable usually through competition. Rewards that motivate the individual are usually incentives for this, trophies or money are examples as at this level they can be very well paid. Elite performers have national recognition. For example a boxer who has won a world championship will be an elite athlete; they are very well paid and will win trophies.

Periodization is when the training programme is broken into periods of time that will help the athlete reach their peak performance at a certain time. Some sports have long seasons where peaking is needed at different times for example in football if a team has a run of big games coming up the players may need to peak and perform to the best of their ability to ensure points being picked up.

There are three main phases of periodization, the first being the macrocycle which is usually a year or a season long. A macrocyle is usually geared towards working on a long term goal, for example and athlete working towards the Olympic games if it is a year ahead. This means they would peak in time for the games, resulting in their best performances and resulting in winning medals. Speed and skills would be practised under pressure to stimulate game play so strategies and tactics are perfected.

The second phase of periodization is the mesocycle which is usually is 4-6 weeks long, during this phase the aim would be to emphasise a certain goal or component of fitness, for example during pre-season when a performer would build on their aerobic base, developing speed, power and other components of physical fitness. This would prepare an athlete, for example a rugby player for the season meaning they would be sharp and ready for the beginning of the season ensuring a good start and good performances in the season.

The third phase of periodization is the mircocycle, this relates to each individual training session, these usually last up to a week as each individual training session is part of the week and makes up the macro and meso cycles. For example a basketball player doing a speed play training session would be a part of the whole macro and meso cycles.

An increase in vital capacity is a long term response of the respiratory system. Vital capacity is the max amount of air that can be exhaled after max inhalation, this will lead to a more efficient supply of air ensuring that more oxygen enters the bloodstream. Muscles can work for longer without tiring as lactic acid does not build up as rapidly, this means that the athlete can work for longer without tiring giving them an advantage over the opposition.

Another long term response of the Respiratory System is increased oxygen diffusion rate, due to more capillaries this allows more oxygen and co2 to be exchanged. With long term training more oxygen and co2, muscles can work for longer without tiring.  Gaseous exchange and diffusion happen much quicker during exercise meaning that more oxygen can move from high concentration to a low concentration in the body ensuring that tiring muscles do not build lactic acid and can work for longer. Check out our articles on increasing vital capacity, but for now there are a few pointers below:

Tips to Increase Vital Capacity

• Breath Deeply: This is a really easy one to do, and requires the least effort, yet can still help your respiratory system and in turn help you increase your vital capacity. First hold your arms wide apart (like your a plane),and exhale fully, do not let any air stay in your lungs, this means your next breath you will be able to take more air in. Breath in as deeply as you can and ensure you are relaxing your abdominal muscles and repeat for about 1 minute, 3 times a day. 
• Try to train at a high altitude if you are able to, there is less oxygen in the air and your lungs have to work harder. Amazing athletes do this, they even travel to volcanic islands to run on the high volcanoes, it is hot and there is little oxygen, when they go back to running in the normal atmosphere, it seems much easier for them!
• If your are unable to train at high altitudes you can still challenge your lungs, you can restrict your breathing by blowing up a balloon, as the balloon is fuller and there is more resistance, your lungs have to work harder. Over time this can help build the strength of your lungs and increase your vital capacity

Another long term response is increase in muscle strength. Muscle only strengthens when forced to operate at higher intensities, meaning muscles need to be overloaded. This is done by increasing the resistance (repetitions and weight) this means more micro tears occur allowing the muscles to obtain more protein increasing their size and strength. As muscles become stronger more weight can be lifted, meaning athletes such as weightlifters can lift more giving them an advantage in competition or athletes in contact sports will be harder to push off the ball.

A third long term response is increased tolerance to lactic acid. This is achieved by completing anaerobic training, a greater volume of blood is used to supply the muscles with oxygen and nutrients. Muscles become more efficient at using oxygen and increase the ability to work harder without fatiguing. This is extremely useful in sports such as football as runners have to travel long distances which means lactic acid will build up and cause cramp, with increased tolerance more blood gets to the muscles and makes it harder for lactic acid to build up. This means runners will be able to run faster and longer as they will not cramp, ensuring and advantage over rivals and possibly leading to wins.

I know this routine will deliver you results so all that’s left to say is GOOD LUCK!

The Biceps, Pectoral and Abdominal muscles are the most common muscles that men want to improve on because everybody wants impressive biceps, why? Because it’s the most famous muscle there is, when someone says to you ‘flex those muscles’ they refer to your arms and biceps!* The problem is no-one wants to fork out a fortune on buying a load of exercise equipment that they probably don’t need or commit to a gym membership if they’re just getting started, so here is our quick and easy guide to building your biceps that require nothing more then a pair of dumbbells. When you’re building your biceps you have to remember you can’t train one muscle alone so lets have a look at the overall muscle group.

*Common Mistake; The Biceps are the pair of muscles which people often think are just one muscle called ‘The Bicep’, which does not exist.

Now whilst the Biceps are the muscles that we want to improve we’re naturally going to have to train the Brachialis and the Brachioradialis as they’re connected and the exercises used to improve the biceps also use these muscles. It’s also important to know that by trying the overall group we’re allowing ourselves to train the desired muscle to a greater degree. So let’s have a look at 2 exercise techniques focus on building mass in the upper arm whilst only requiring dumbbells.

Our Well known friend Arnold Schwarzenegger demonstrating the standing curl

The First Exercise we’re going to use is the Standing Curl which is the standard for biceps training and requires either a barbell or dumbbell. Do do this exercise we must stand up straight, no slouching with feet shoulder width apart and hold our arms by our side with palms pointing outwards holding the weight. Now the upper arm should not move at all as we raise the weight by curling our lower arms upwards, keeping our posture straight and our elbows by our side. Bring the weight all the way up until the forearm touches the biceps then slowly lower the weight using the reverse of the motion. Don’t rush the motion as we want to have to keep applying force to the weight, if we do the motion too quickly the acceleration will mean we don’t have to put as much effort in and this exercise is all about effort. Just remember that numbers mean nothing and 2 rushed curls is not as good as 1 done properly.

Our lesser known friend showing us the proper way to do a hammer curl.

The second Exercise we’re going to show you is the Hammer Curl which actually focuses on the Brachialis but it’s very important as it makes the biceps look better. It’s on the list for a reason as by having a super Brachialis it means the muscle will take up more space which naturally causes a squashing effect on the biceps, maximising their vertical growth which makes them look more impressive. The exercise itself is easy to do as it’s a simple variant of the standing bar curl however you cannot use a barbell just dumbbells. The technique is identical to the prior technique except the palms face the body instead of facing outwards and the arms aren’t raised the entire way. So keeping the same posture but with the palms facing inwards we raise the forearm from vertically downward to just past horizontal (around 100-110 degree remembering that from vertical to horizontal is 90 degree), hold it for a second then slowly lower to vertical and repeat. Again the strength is developed by going slowly and you MUST keep your elbows from moving as this keeps your back from taking the weight and focuses the load on the desired muscle.

These exercises are crucial to the development of the biceps and we know you’ll have the arms you want in a matter of months. If you’re looking for more exercises that improve the biceps and arms then why not try One Arm Preacher Curls or Incline Dumbbell curls.