Golf & Tourism Magazine July - September 2014 | Page 22

Fitness & Health

The importance of

Sports Performance
Training
By Joseph I Nelson

Sports performance training is a system used to perform specific
physical routines or procedures under the guidance of a skilled
trainer. Since every sport has its particularities, specificity-exercise
training is the method needed to develop specific skills in order to
maximize performance.
Performance is influenced by a combination of physiological,
psychological, and socio-cultural factors. In our Golf Performance
Training Program private lessons, students learn skills, concepts,
and methods needed to achieve the high-level of proficiency
required in professional performance. A good understanding of
some sport performance concepts is important to lay a proper
foundation for specific physical routines:

Training: a process that uses instruction and discipline to maximize skills, proficiency and performance.
Ability: competence in a sport resulting from the person’s natural skills and training to develop special skills or aptitudes.
Talent: a set of personal characteristics and traits which allow some to improve quicker than others. It exists when strong
genetics and a deliberate interest to practice come together to
create a superior ability for a specific activity.
Stress and arousal: stress results from an imbalance between
demand and the individual’s capacity to deal with it. Arousal is the
state of interest in the skill. The optimal performance level is moderate stress or arousal.
Fatigue: the deterioration of performance when a stressful task
is continued for a long time. Fatigue can also be caused by overarousal, and has a negative effect on accuracy, awareness and
performance in general.
Motor learning: it is a change in the capability for responding,
resulting from practice and repetition. The stages to motor learning are: cognitive, associative, and autonomous.

PHASES OF MOTOR LEARNING
Cognitive Phase: When an
athlete is new to a specific task,
the primary thought process
starts with, “what needs to be
done?” Considerable cognitive
activity is required so that the
athlete can learn the appropriate strategies to adequately
achieve the desired goal. Good
strategies are retained and inefficient strategies are discarded.
The performance is greatly
improved in a short amount of
time.

and movements become more
consistent. This phase can last
a long time. The skills in this
phase are fluent, efficient and
aesthetically pleasing.

Associative Phase: the athlete
has been thought the most effective way to do the task and
starts to make subtle adjustments in performance. Improvements are more gradual

Our experience tells us that
success comes from determination and taking action
with what we can control. The
discipline of training the body
follows the mind and the spirit.

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Autonomous Phase: this phase
may take several months to
years to reach. The phase is
dubbed “autonomous” because the performer can now
“automatically” complete the
task without having to pay any
attention to performing it.

It all begins with what you can
do and can have control over.
The secret is the structure
that is given by the discipline
when you commit to exercise training.
The Golf Performance Exercise
Training Program by Fitness
Solutions consists of evaluating
and then maximizing the body’s
range of motion, flexibility and
strength. As a result, the exercise training method allows for
wear without tear, which allows
you to focus your spirit and
mind on your best golf.

Some of the Program
main considerations and
focus include:

.
.
.
.

Development of power maximum output for distance.
How muscle restrictions affect
performing the swing.
Flexibility of the spine and
range of motion to enhance
output.
The power house (core)
strength and stability to coile
steadily while creating a pivot.

For more information on Golf
Performance Training by Fitness
Solutions contact Joseph I. Nelson
at 787-547-0296.

JULY - SEPTEMBER 2014