Fitness Testing
What is the purpose of a pre-exercise questionnaire?
To identify health risks and other factors that may affect safe participation in exercise.
What is continuous training?
Exercise performed for an extended period without rest at a steady intensity.
What is specificity?
Training adaptations are specific to the muscles, movements and energy systems trained.
What happens to resting heart rate after aerobic training?
It decreases because the cardiovascular system becomes more efficient and the heart pumps more blood per beat.
What is one benefit of a warm-up?
It increases heart rate, blood flow and muscle temperature, preparing the body for exercise and potentially reducing injury risk.
What does the Yo-Yo test measure?
An athlete's ability to repeatedly perform high-intensity exercise and recover between efforts.
What is HIIT and how does it work?
High Intensity Interval Training alternates short periods of intense exercise with brief recovery periods, challenging both aerobic and anaerobic systems.
What is progressive overload?
Gradually increasing training demands to continue stimulating physiological adaptation.
What is muscle hypertrophy?
An increase in the size of muscle fibres, allowing greater force production and improved strength and power.
Why is skill practice important for performance?
It improves technique, efficiency and consistency, allowing skills to be performed more effectively under pressure.
Explain how fitness testing can help develop an individual training program.
It identifies strengths and weaknesses, helps set goals and allows training methods, intensity, frequency and duration to be personalised.
Compare aerobic interval training with anaerobic interval training.
Aerobic intervals develop aerobic capacity using repeated moderate-to-high intensity efforts with short recovery. Anaerobic intervals use near-maximal efforts to develop speed, power and anaerobic capacity
Explain how reversibility can affect an athlete's performance.
When training stops or is reduced, physiological adaptations decline, resulting in reduced fitness and performance.
Explain how an increase in VO₂ max improves endurance performance.
A higher VO₂ max allows an athlete to use more oxygen and produce aerobic energy more efficiently, helping them exercise at higher intensities for longer.
How do individual and team sports differ in their conditioning requirements?
Individual sports often target specific fitness requirements, while team sports usually require several components. For example, a marathon runner mainly needs endurance, while an AFL player needs endurance, speed, agility and strength.
Explain why fitness testing is important for both recreational participants and elite athletes.
Recreational participants use testing to establish fitness levels, set goals and monitor progress. Elite athletes use it to identify strengths and weaknesses, monitor adaptations and optimise performance.
Assess the relevance of resistance training for an athlete competing in a team sport.
Resistance training is highly relevant because it develops strength, power and muscular endurance. For example, rugby league players can improve tackling and collision performance.
Analyse how progressive overload and training thresholds lead to physiological adaptations.
Progressive overload continually increases the training stimulus, while training thresholds ensure the stimulus is intense enough to cause adaptation. Together they promote improvements in fitness and performance.
Compare the role of slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibres in different sports.
Slow-twitch fibres resist fatigue and suit endurance activities such as marathon running. Fast-twitch fibres produce greater force and power but fatigue faster, making them important for sprinting and explosive activities.
Explain how strategies and tactics influence training for individual and group sports.
Individual athletes make personal tactical decisions, while group sports require coordinated decisions, communication and teamwork to implement strategies.
Evaluate how fitness assessment can be used to personalise training and improve athletic performance.
Assessment identifies strengths, weaknesses and risks, allows realistic goals to be established, helps personalise training and provides data to monitor progress and modify the program.
Evaluate the most appropriate combination of training methods for an athlete of choice.
A combination of aerobic training, HIIT, resistance training, plyometrics and skill/tactical training would be appropriate because AFL requires endurance, repeated high-intensity efforts, strength, power, agility and sport-specific skills.
Evaluate how the principles of training influence physiological adaptations and performance.
Principles such as progressive overload, specificity and training thresholds provide the stimulus for adaptation, while variety, reversibility and appropriate warm-ups/cool-downs help maintain and support performance.
Evaluate the importance of physiological adaptations for an endurance athlete.
Adaptations such as lower resting heart rate, increased stroke volume, cardiac output, VO₂ max and haemoglobin improve oxygen delivery and use, allowing an athlete to sustain higher workloads and delay fatigue.
Examine how training, recovery, technology and evaluation can be combined to maximise sporting performance.
Training develops the required physical and technical qualities, recovery allows adaptation, technology provides feedback and analysis, and evaluation identifies strengths, weaknesses and areas for further improvement. Together they allow training to be continually adjusted and optimised.