Specificity

If you wish to get better at swinging a bat, you must ultimately swing a bat. Weight lifting, yoga, stretching, or other exercises will not create major improvements unless you also practice the actual swing of the bat.

Last week, when we discussed the SAID principle, we covered a concept known as "periodization." We learned that endurance training will improve endurance but does little to benefit strength, while strength training will not directly help you run longer distances. We also learned that it is best to train in phases - that instead of focusing on both strength and endurance at the same time, it is better to focus on one and then the other.

The specificity principle takes this a step further. When applying this principle, we talk about training as going from "general" to specific. What exactly does this mean? Let's use a hypothetical person named "John" as an example.

John's goal is to run a marathon. In order to run a marathon, we know that John must have good endurance because the race is 42 kilometers in length. If John were to simply go out and start running extremely long distances, he would place himself at great risk for injury. He also would become frustrated rather quickly at lack of results.

This is because John must first build an endurance baseline. Instead of focusing specifically on the marathon, John should start to build up his mileage. He may start by jogging only a few days per week and covering only a few kilometers every jog. This is how John begins to build his level of cardiovascular fitness. Eventually, John will begin to increase his mileage and handle longer and longer runs.

While John may eventually end up training with runs of 30 kilometers or longer, this does not mean John is ready to run a competitive marathon. His "base" might be built and he can handle the distance. However, when John enters his first race, he is frustrated for two reasons. First, his energy seems to get sapped every time he has to go uphill. Second, he has trouble maintaining a fast pace. In the end, he finishes with a slow time.

Fortunately, John understands the specificity principle. He has already built his "base" of mileage. Now, he will begin to focus on his two weak areas: the hills, and his pace. To tackle pace, John will begin to perform "tempo runs" where he jogs a few miles, then runs at a very fast pace for several miles, then slows down again.

John will also add a day of hill training every week and do nothing but run up hills, jog to the bottom to catch his breath, and then run up the hills again. In his next marathon he finishes with a fast time because his training has improved his ability to run the race. Note that he is still training for endurance, following the SAID principle, but he has now added training specific to his event in accordance with the specificity principle.

In this example, if John simply focused on running hills or tempo, he might not have been prepared for the marathon and could have been injured. Instead, he started with general training - building a baseline of cardiovascular fitness. Then, he focused on specificity and targeted those areas of the run he struggled with, namely pace and elevations.

The same principle can apply to any sport. For example, a baseball player might begin with some general weight lifting and cardiovascular exercise to improve their general conditioning. They are not playing the actual game during this period because they are building their base. However, after that base is built, they'll begin to focus specifically on the arm and back muscles to improve the strength of their swing, and ultimately they'll spend hours in the batting cage actually swinging the bat.

We've now covered the seven laws of training. As we mentioned in the first installment, these are not the only laws that exist. They serve as a powerful set of guidelines to shape your own training. Remember that training should never be cookie-cutter or "one size fits all." Instead, you can use the seven laws of training to custom-tailor a program to your own unique goals, or to analyze the training system you are following and find areas you might improve upon to generate better results.

To recap these fundamental principles:

1. Law of individual differences - you are unique!

2. Overcompensation - the body tends to overcompensate as a reaction to stress.

3. GAS principle - too much stress is never a good thing.

4. Use/Disuse - use it or lose it.

5. Overload - to see results, you must constantly "do more."

6. SAID - the result of your training is specific to the type of training, so don't expect heavy squats to improve your ability to run long distances.

7. Specificity - training should progress from general to specific, and in order to get better at a skill, you must perform that skill.