A Healthy Body = Healthy Mind
“I believe great physical conditioning me an advantage when I have to play 36 holes in a match play event like the U.S Amateur or the Ryder Cup, or when the weather has forced a postponement. It gives me an extra gear when I need it. I needed it during the final round of the 2000 NEC invitational in Akron, Ohio, a real marathon because of a weather delay. We finished that tournament in near darkness, and I felt just as fresh in the end as during my warm-up that morning. Fatigue can affect your focus and cause you to make a bad decision. I never want to lose a tournament because of a bad decision precipitated by my being out of shape. In Akron, being at my physical best helped me to stay mentally sharp and allowed me to claim another trophy.”
Tiger Woods, 2001
Imagine a scenario where you are on the practice ground, hitting shot after shot, striving for that consistent perfection that every golfer craves. The harder you try, the more frustrated you become and mental and physical fatigue starts to set in. Wouldn’t it be great to have the capacity to stay out there for half an hour longer, and hit 10% more shots, working on that technical aspect that you have until this point struggled to get right?
Physical fitness strongly relates to what is known the in the world of physical preparation for performance as “work capacity.”
There are 3 components of work capacity:
1) The ability to tolerate a high workload. The key word here is tolerate. Many sportsmen/ women are capable of doing an occasional high workload but cannot adopt this workload on a consistent basis.
2) The ability to recover from the workload sufficiently for the next workout or competition. This is closely tied to the first concept. If the athlete cannot recover, then he or she risks overuse injuries or over-training. The athlete will not be able to adapt to the training stress
3) The capacity to resist fatigue, whatever the source. Fatigue is more than metabolic; it involves the nervous system and mental capacity. Resisting fatigue is the refinement of the efficiency and coordination of the cardiovascular, metabolic and nervous systems.
To better understand the concept of work capacity, it is useful to think of it as the components of athletic fitness that, if deficient, would limit the ability to do other training (e.g. Golf) and subsequently limit the ability to perform.
In essence, work capacity can relate to fitness potential. The more ground work you commit to, the more potential you will give yourself, when you want to go and perform. In this way, you will be able to do as Tiger claims in the above statement and that is to feel as fresh at the end of the round, as you do at the start.
Example Work Capacity Session;
Exercise Bike
- 30 x 30s hard cycle (level 14-15/ 100RPM)/ 30s easy (level 6)
Guidelines: If you cannot sustain 100RPM for the full duration of each repetition then you must reduce the level accordingly. Conversely, if you are maintaining the required pace comfortably for the full duration of each repetition, then you must increase your pace by 5RPM (e.g. from 100RPM to 105RPM).
GOAL: This is a Work Capacity session designed specifically to work at a high intensity in medium length intervals. A gradual increase in blood lactate will be felt and heart rate will rise and fall as the session progresses. The intensity of this session is 85-95% of HR Max at peak. A rough guide to your HR Max is 220-Age (e.g. if you are 20 years old, then 200-20 = 200. 95% of this would be 190 Beats Per Minute (BPM).
Article (c) David Parker MSc ASCC | Strength and Conditioning Coach & Performance Consultant. | sightlineperformance@googlemail.com
