The Power of General Training (Part 3): When General Training May Not Be Enough

When General Training May Not Be Enough

Hopefully, it has been demonstrated so far that general training has many benefits; the ability to deconflict schedules to allow more technical and tactical training, highlighting some of the specific physiological responses that are underpinned by general training and physical activity, and the body’s ability to benefit from non-specific, low hanging fruit training to increase efficiency. But we don’t want to stop there. It is equally, if not more important, to understand when to employ general training over specific training, and inversely: specific training over general training.

Familiarization Effect: The familiarization effect is a phenomenon that occurs when an individual becomes exposed to a test that they have no prior exposure or experience with. It effectively explains why people perform better on a second or third attempt in these scenarios – and it rings true in physical and non-physical tests. This is one of the reasons why many physical warm ups contain variations or the test itself (Hibbert et Al 2017) in it – if warming up for a maximal jump height test, a good warmup will contain some form of jumping, if not that exact mode of jumping that will be measured soon after. It is also the reason why when studying for a big written test, the research demonstrates (Naujoks et Al 2022) that the best way to prepare is to take practice tests that closely resemble the test in question.

Advanced Athletes: Athletes who are highly advanced will require more specific means to continue to elicit positive responses from training exposures. Think back to the example of the Olympic swimmer on their last quad (four year cycle between Olympic Games): this athlete would not only be chronologically “old” (with regards to their sport) but also their training age will be high. As training age increases, it is safe to assume that their previous training exposures have elicited responses; therefore, dulling or reducing subsequent responses to the same training exposure. The only means to elicit more training response is to introduce new, novel training exposures, which should be in the form of increased specificity in training. Think back to Dr. Bondarchuk’s pyramid – the higher an athletes training age becomes, the higher on a pyramid a coach will be required to shift training to continue to elicit positive training responses without increasing total volume or workload, which as we have mentioned, has an upper limit with regards to time committed to training, but also inter-session recovery. Let me be clear, the example of the swimmer is far simpler than that of a team sport or tactical athlete. Where a swimmer or track athlete are only concerned with the time on the clock, tactical and team sport athletes are required to juggle complex tasks and environments like managing space and speed of themselves, their team, and the opponent, positive ID of opponents and or opposing plays, knowledge of their own playbook or current mission goals and requirements, rules of engagement, and far more.

Near Transfer vs Far Transfer: A concept that I have been exposed to recently that holds strong relevance when considering specific vs general training is that of near and far transfer – a term commonly used in the cognitive performance space. Far transfer can be used to describe how skills and abilities from one task can improve skills and abilities of another task that has little or no relation to the former. Where near transfer focuses on cognitive processes and performance of a drill or exercise that closely resembles the context, environment, and task requirements of the targeted skill. Research has shown that near transfer (cognitive training to improve cortical activity, short-term memory, anticipatory timing, visual acuity, executive function, etc) training has strong efficacy, but far transfer (using cognitive tasks to improve sport, etc) does not (Fransen 2024). It seems like the realm of cognitive performance, based on the evidence that we currently have, benefits the most from what I would define as specific training, where environments, task requirements, and cognitive load is most like that of the targeted task environment.

Why We Should Place More Emphasis On General Training

When it comes to making the decision between general and specific physical training, it’s important to remember that the majority of our athletes have other task requirements that constantly compete for time, energy, and cognitive capacity. Considering our tactical and team sport athletes, the majority of physical requirements are general in nature and the large majority of tactical and technical requirements are far more specific in nature. With this in mind, let the weight room and physical training environment be the tool used to augment and elevate the technical and tactical development of our athletes, and not detract from more task-specific development that our athletes engage in frequently.

Additionally, take confidence in the specific benefits that our athletes reap when training more generalized methods, from increased pain tolerance, better aerobic capacity, and improved metabolic health. These benefits not only have specific positive outcomes for physical and nonphysical domains of performance, but also support a lifetime of health and improved longevity for our sport, tactical, and occupational athletes.

At the end of the day, general training improves physical capacity, allows you to shift focus to more domain specific technical and tactical skill development, reduces training stagnancy when employed in a long term athlete development model, and is athlete-centered in nature by shifting focus away from physical task demands and towards the low hanging fruit and rate limiters of the athlete in front of you.

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