Sports Performance: Training the Body for Sport 

Develop the skills to support athletes’ training, wellbeing, and performance

On this four-week course designed by sport and fitness experts at The Open University, you’ll expand your knowledge of some of the current issues and thinking around training individuals, teams, and specific groups as they prepare for performance.

Explore the benefits of a multidisciplinary approach to training

Through engaging learning materials, you’ll discover why taking a multidisciplinary approach to physical preparation in sport is key to supporting an athlete’s or team’s performance and how you can use this to get the best from your training methods.

Gain inside knowledge from sport and fitness experts

Whether you are supporting athletes or focusing on your own performance, you’ll learn the importance of conducting a needs analysis and the profiling of athletes to inform any training interventions.

You’ll explore topical issues, such as how much should female and male training differ, what benefits can new technology bring to performance, and how athlete monitoring or functional training can be used.

Discover how to apply the science behind sporting performance

You’ll learn about the science underpinning athlete monitoring and how you can apply it to better meet the training needs of athletes. This will help you determine how to adjust training and wellness strategies so you can ensure athletes are optimised and ready for performance.

Build upon your own experiences to discover how to make your training plans more effective

Throughout this course you’ll be able to connect your own experiences with the examples you hear about, including those from a conditioning coach, individual athletes, a team, and a child athlete.

By the end you’ll have a better understanding of proven techniques and methods and how you can apply them effectively.

You will gain most benefit from the course if you are actively leading, coaching or supporting athletes, such as:

• Professional and amateur athletes, coaches and support teams
• Those with a curiosity for watching and understanding sports performances
• Sports educators
• Parents of children engaged in sports
• Strength and conditioning coaches or fitness instructors

• Exploring an athlete’s training needs
• Welcome
• What is a multidisciplinary approach?
• How can we best understand the needs of an athlete?
• How do you profile and test an athlete?
• Topical issues in strength and conditioning
• Principles of training
• How can current technological trends help performance?
• How has functional training developed?
• How does female and male training differ?
• Wrap-up
• What is athlete monitoring?
• What are the measurable components of training?
• What are internal and external training loads?
• How can we measure fatigue?
• Wrap-up
• Training for performance
• How much resistance training should children do?
• Working with teams
• How do we work with an individual athlete?
• Wrap-up