Training Principles and Load Management in Tactical Populations

Summary

This article focuses on core training principles, emphasising the need for the right stimulus to improve physical performance while minimising injury risk. It explores how an athlete's body undergoes physiological changes based on training factors such as volume, intensity, frequency, and type. The concept of supercompensation is introduced, highlighting its role in optimising performance. The article discusses Hans Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome, emphasising how athletes go through alarm, resistance, and exhaustion phases. It concludes by presenting some practical and low-cost tools to help manage training load and fatigue in tactical populations.

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1. From Supercompensation to Training Load Management

The primary goal of a train is to provide the right stimulus to enhance specific physical qualities and optimising performance. Simultaneously, it aims to reduce the risk of injuries and facilitate long-term growth (1–3).

The enhancement of performance is founded on the principles of training load and adaptation. When athletes engage in training, their bodies experience several changes in their physiological status. These changes can affect various bodily functions like neuromuscular, cardiovascular, metabolic, hormonal, and cell signalling. The specific alterations in these responses depend on factors like the volume, intensity, frequency, and nature of the training an athlete undergoes. Essentially, the more quality of train in terms of management of volume, intensity, or frequency, the more significant the physiological changes resulting from their training will be (2).

The definition of training load pertains to the cumulative stress an individual undergoes from one or multiple training sessions over time. This load can be categorised as either internal or external. Internal load assesses an individual's physiological response during the training session, such as heart rate. In contrast, external load represents the overall work performed by individuals, which could include metrics like the distance covered during the session (4).

Each type of training load leads to a specific adaptation that ultimately determines performance output. The way we manage these factors can cause different outcomes (2). We could synthesise them in three performance outputs:

Table 1. Relation of Stimulus and adaptation. Based in Bompa and Buzzichelli (2).

To fully grasp the Table 1, it is essential to comprehend a key concept: Supercompensation. In 1941, Folbrot proposed the law of supercompensation (2). Supercompensation cycle, illustrated in Figure 1, comprises two major phases: catabolic and anabolic. These are sliced in four subphases: fatigue (acute response), compensation, supercompensation, and involution. In essence, our body constantly seeks to find itself in a biological state of homeostasis (biological balance). Each training stimulus or exercise load induces temporary fatigue and a reduction in performance or functional capacity. Subsequently, the athlete's return to this equilibrium state after a training session can be considered a compensation period. This process is gradual and can take several hours, or even days. When there's enough time between training sessions, the body can recover from fatigue and fully replenish its energy stores, leading to a state of supercompensation. With each instance of supercompensation, the athlete elevates their baseline level of homeostasis, resulting in improved performance. However, if the time between training sessions is too long, the supercompensation effect diminishes, and performance levels may decrease, which is known as involution (2,5).

Figure 1. Supercompensation cycle response to one training session (2).

Years later, Hans Selye observed that a person's ability to handle stress can diminish because of a sudden increase in physical or psychological strain (5). His observations lead to a proposal of a General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) (1,2). GAS, as depicted in Figure 2, serves as the basis for the concept of progressive overloading (2). Athletes typically undergo two distinct phases in response to different training sessions. Poor management of the training load could potentially lead to a third, undesirable phase (1,2):

1- Alarm: This phase could last days to weeks. Athletes may encounter soreness, stiffness, and temporary performance decline.

2- Resistance: During this phase, the body adapts and returns to normal functioning, making neurological and muscle adjustments to enhance performance.

3- Exhaustion: This phase occurs in cases of prolonged stress or poor work-rest management. Can lead to symptoms like those experienced in the alarm phase, including fatigue and soreness. Athletes may lose adaptability, increasing the risk of issues like staleness, overtraining, and maladaptation, especially when there's limited training variety or excessive stress.

Figure 2. General Adaptation Syndrome (2). A = Typical Training; B = Overtraining; C = Overreaching or Supercompensation.

These concepts suggest that to achieve the most effective training adaptations, a systematic and thoughtful variation of training intensities, volumes, and specific bioenergetic aspects in a sequence of phases is required (1). That approach leads to an effective fatigue management and ensures the rest periods for supercompensation to occur as illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The sum of training effect: (a) long intervals between training sessions and (b) short intervals between training sessions (2).

Poor systematisation of training variables and inadequate management of fatigue can lead to a decline in performance and, in extreme cases, to overtraining syndrome (1,2). This is illustrated more clearly in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Decline in performance from prolonged maximal-intensity stimuli (2).

These concepts are entirely applicable to tactical populations. For several years, the interpretation of tactical populations training load was limited to general physical training sessions. This means that the impact of technical and tactical training sessions on fatigue management were often overlooked. Tasks such as restraining individuals, crowd control, load bearing, load carrying, victim dragging, stair climbing, crawling, and engaging in man-to-man contact are just a few examples of critical tasks that significantly contribute to the overall training load. Each of these activities serves as a stimulus and can place substantial physiological demands on individuals (5).

Nowadays, there are several methods to monitor training loads in traditional sports, including GPS, heart rate, heart rate variability, training impulse, lactate levels, or oxygen consumption, etc. Many of these methods can also apply to tactical populations. Although collecting external load is usually simple, measuring internal load often poses challenges in terms of cost and practicality. One of the simplest and most universally applicable methods to measure internal load is the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE). This tool can be utilised in two ways: for planning, when the planner asks himself, "What will be the intended workload of the training session?" and at the end of the session, by asking the tactical athletes, "How did the session go?" (7). In both cases, is necessary that all the people know well the scale presented in Figure 5.

Figure 5. The modified Rate of Perceived Exertion scale (7).

The perceived effort can be quantified by multiplying it by the session's duration, resulting in session RPE or sRPE. Another valuable tool is the Acute:Chronic Workload Ratio (ACWR). This ratio provides insight into an individual's overall workload by comparing recent (acute) workload to their long-term (chronic) workload and tracking changes over time. While maintaining a balanced ACWR between 0.8 and 1.3 seems to reduce injury risk and improve fitness in various sports, it's important to note that there isn't enough data for direct application to tactical populations, but these numbers can serve as a reference. Nevertheless, the rate of change in workload is closely linked to injury risk. Maintaining volume, duration, or intensity progression under 10% per week is essential to prevent injuries (4).

To effectively manage workload and minimise the risk of injuries, two crucial indices can be considered based on the Training Load calculated using sRPE: the Monotony Index and the Strain Index. The Monotony Index assesses the daily variability in training, which is linked to the potential onset of overtraining. A higher monotony in training shows an increased risk of injury (7). This index can be calculated using the following equation:

Regarding the training strain index, assesses the cumulative effect of training loads over a period. A higher training strain represents a period of high training stress. In short, help us identify if we are ensuring the work-rest ratio effectively (7). It can be calculated using the following equation:

It is crucial to emphasise that tactical populations operate in high-stress environments, where readiness can often be a matter of life or death. Providing the proper training stimulus and effectively managing training load and fatigue enables these populations to respond efficiently and effectively to any assignment (5).

The absence of a systematic approach with variation and coordination of training sessions can lead to the accumulation of excessive fatigue, increasing the risk of overtraining and injury. This implies that when considering the physical preparation of our tactical athletes, we should implement periodisation, much like traditional athletes have been doing for a long time. Just as traditional athletes structure their technical and tactical sessions while considering the accumulated fatigue from these sessions, we must do the same for tactical populations. Only by following this approach can we enhance readiness while reducing the likelihood of injuries (5).

This topic, however, will be addressed in our next publication. We hope you found this article enjoyable and that it has added to your understanding of the application of sports sciences to tactical populations.

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