KIQ 1 – Exercise Assessment & Prescription
What is the purpose of a pre-exercise questionnaire and health screening?
Pre-exercise questionnaires and health screening ensure exercise is safe and effective. They identify contraindications and allow activities to be modified or delayed to protect the participant.
Name the five major types of training.
Flexibility, aerobic, anaerobic, strength, and skill and tactical development.
What are the three phases of a training year?
Pre-season, in-season and off-season.
Why is hydration important for athletic performance?
Hydration reduces fatigue and helps maximise performance. Dehydration can impair thermoregulation, coordination and endurance, increasing injury risk.
What is biomechanics?
Biomechanics is the analysis of movement to identify inefficient or incorrect movement patterns and optimise movement technique.
What is the purpose of performance/fitness testing?
Performance/fitness testing assesses an individual's physical capabilities, helps set goals and allows training programs to be tailored to improve health, participation and performance.
What is progressive overload?
Progressive overload is gradually increasing the intensity, duration or resistance of training to continually challenge the body and stimulate physical adaptations.
What is the difference between a macrocycle, mesocycle and microcycle?
A macrocycle is the larger training cycle, usually encompassing the year. A mesocycle is a smaller period of weeks or months, while a microcycle is a smaller building block contributing to mesocycle and macrocycle goals.
Identify two benefits of adequate sleep for an athlete.
Sleep supports muscle repair, hormonal balance and cognitive function. Adequate sleep also supports coordination and decision-making.
Name two physiological recovery strategies.
Cool-down and hydrotherapy.
Explain how exercise assessment can be used to personalise a training program.
Exercise assessment provides objective data that can be used to identify baseline fitness levels, personalise training goals and methods, enhance safety, track progress, adapt the program and inform periodisation and training phases.
Explain how specificity can improve performance in a sport of your choice.
Specificity means training should mimic the demands of the sport or goal by targeting the specific muscles, energy systems and movement patterns used.
Compare the training focus of an individual sport and a group sport during the in-season phase.
Individual sports focus on competition-specific intensity and peaking for major events. Group sports focus on regular matches, team strategies and skill refinement.
Explain why nutritional requirements differ between different sports.
Different sports place different demands on the body, so athletes need to match nutrition to the energy systems, duration, intensity and movement demands of their sport. For example, a marathon athlete requires greater pre-performance carbohydrate consumption than a sprinter.
Explain how biomechanical analysis can improve movement efficiency and sustained performance.
Biomechanical analysis can identify inefficient movement patterns that waste energy or place excess strain on the body. Correcting these patterns can conserve energy and support sustained performance, particularly in endurance sports, while also improving movement technique and execution.
Compare the use of fitness testing for a recreational participant and an elite athlete.
For recreational participants, fitness testing can identify health risks, promote general wellbeing, improve movement efficiency and fitness for daily life, build motivation and set realistic goals. For elite athletes, testing can help prevent overtraining, monitor injury risk, maintain motivation, fine-tune competition readiness, enhance sport-specific performance and track peak conditioning.
Explain the relationship between progressive overload, physiological adaptations and improved performance.
Progressive overload and training thresholds can produce adaptations such as a lower resting heart rate, lower submaximal heart rate and quicker recovery to resting heart rate. These improve cardiovascular efficiency, delay fatigue and improve recovery. Progressive overload and specificity can also increase haemoglobin and red blood cell count, improving oxygen transport and sustained aerobic performance.
Explain how psychological strategies can be applied differently in individual and group sports.
Individual athletes generally rely more on self-awareness, personalised routines and self-regulation. Group sports may use shared arousal strategies, leadership and peer support, emotion management within social settings, and structured routines such as time-outs.
Analyse the role of protein, caffeine and creatine in improving athletic performance.
Protein supports recovery and muscle repair and may assist recovery and hypertrophy when consumed after resistance training. Caffeine can improve alertness, reaction time, concentration and perceived exertion, although excessive use can cause jitteriness, increased heart rate and sleep disturbance. Creatine enhances the body's ability to rapidly produce ATP and may increase power, strength and lean muscle mass.
Explain how technology can be used to monitor training and improve performance.
Technology can provide precise information that allows coaches and athletes to make data-informed decisions and personalise training. Examples include video analysis, force plates, motion sensors, 3D motion capture, heart-rate monitors and HRV monitoring.
A 17-year-old athlete is preparing for an endurance event. Explain how assessment data could be used to develop, monitor and modify an individualised training program.
Assessment data would establish baseline fitness and identify strengths, weaknesses and health considerations. Results could be used to select training methods, establish realistic goals and training intensities, and personalise the program. Regular reassessment could track progress and allow modification. The information could also inform periodisation and different phases of training.
An athlete has stopped improving despite regularly training. Analyse how the principles of training could be applied to overcome the plateau and improve performance.
Apply progressive overload by gradually increasing speed, duration, resistance, repetitions or sets. Use specificity so training reflects sport movements, muscles and energy systems. Ensure training thresholds are sufficient to stimulate adaptations, use variety to prevent plateaus, and include appropriate warm-ups and cool-downs. Together these principles can stimulate physiological adaptations that improve movement, fitness and performance.
Compare how periodisation, peaking and tapering could be applied to an individual athlete preparing for a major event and a team preparing for finals.
For an individual athlete, periodisation can be highly personalised, with a clear focus on peaking for a major event. Tapering reduces training volume before competition to allow recovery and peaking. For a group sport, training must account for team cohesion, tactics, communication, regular matches and collective needs. A group may taper before important matches or finals, but full-season peaking is less common.
An endurance athlete frequently reports fatigue and poor recovery. Evaluate how sleep, nutrition, hydration and supplementation strategies could be modified to improve performance and reduce injury risk.
Establish consistent sleep and wake times and consider short naps during high training loads. Nutrition should provide appropriate carbohydrates, protein and other nutrients according to training demands. Hydration should be personalised according to sweat rate and exercise conditions. Monitoring could include sleep diaries or wearables, nutrition logs and weighing before and after training. Supplementation should follow a food-first approach and only be considered where dietary requirements cannot be adequately met, with appropriate professional/medical advice.
An athlete is experiencing repeated performance decline and fatigue. Justify how biomechanics, recovery strategies, technology and injury-management strategies could be integrated to support sustained performance.
Biomechanical analysis can identify inefficient movement and reduce unnecessary energy expenditure. Physiological recovery such as cool-down and hydrotherapy, and psychological recovery such as relaxation, can support recovery. Technology can monitor training load, readiness and performance trends. Injury-management strategies should classify, assess and appropriately manage injuries, followed by progressive rehabilitation and a suitable return-to-play process. This integrated approach can improve efficiency, reduce injury risk and support sustained performance.