As we gear up to present our next speaker Mark Roe, who will speak on training loads and injuries, we will begin to explore the role of training load on both athletic performance and injury reduction.

Training load is currently the hot topic within Sports Medicine and Sports Performance. But what is it? Training loads can be broken up into both internal or external variables. Internal training loads are the biological stressors imposed on the athlete during training or competition, these are commonly measured by heart rate, blood lactate, rating of perceived exertion etc. External training loads are objective measures of the amount of work completed during training or competition and common measures include GPS parameters.

The importance of monitoring training loads has come to prominence over the past few years as its role in enhancing athletic performance and injury reduction has come to light through research. Traditionally the model to stress response imposed on the biological system has been based on the General Adaptation System Model proposed by Hans Selye in 1931. As John Kiely outlined in his article “Periodization Paradigms in the 21st Century: Evidence-Led or Tradition-Driven”, the periodization philosophy of training hinges on the presumption that biological adaptation to future training is largely predictable and follows a determinable pattern. However, we know that individual athletes will respond differently to each other even when doing the same training program/session. Biological stressors are often neglected as just training stress alone, however it comes in many different forms. For example, a wide range of imposed stressors emotional, dietary,social, sleep, academic have been demonstrated to variously down regulate the immune system, dampen adaptive response, and negatively affect motor coordination, cognitive performance, mood, metabolism, and hormonal health, consequently reducing performance and elevating injury risk. These all add up, and both the sports medicine professional or coach needs to be aware of these factors. Therefore, the ability to monitor the training loads of athletes, both internal and external, and their individual response is vitally important to enhance performance and prevent injury.