The 2009 Canada Games have started!

Hi, my name is Brandie Adams and I am the Reference Librarian at SIRC. I’m very excited to be attending the 2009 Canada Games in Prince Edward Island. If the energy and the weather continue like this they are sure to be the best Games yet! I could be slightly bias, I’m from PEI and it is a wonderful feeling to look around and see the whole Island get involved and support Canadian sport.

The opening ceremonies were in Summerside on Saturday. The athletes entered the Credit Union Place with big smiles waving their provincial flags. Each athlete was able to meet Governor General Michaelle Jean and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. We listened to uplifting speeches and were entertained by a variety of local musical talent.

With the first day of events complete the Games are well under way. Today is sure to be filled with activity. After attending the media briefing I'll be spending time in the Coaches of Canada Coaches’ Lounge before heading off to the watch some of the events. With basketball, beach volleyball, rugby, tennis, rowing, diving, softball, tennis, cycling, soccer and sailing happening there are lots of things to choose from today! In two days I’ve met some fantastic people so I'm looking forward to seeing what today brings.

Week Two is under way!

Yesterday was the first day of events for week two. After practices being cancelled on Sunday because of rain and wind (Hurricane Bill) everyone was ready for the week to begin. It seemed like the perfect day for outdoor sport with a mild temperature and very little wind. From the sounds of things the indoor action for volleyball and swimming was equally as exciting.

There are a few first at the Canada Games this year and yesterday was the premiere of the Special Olympics in the 100M and 1500M wheelchair.

The mobile SIRC Resource Centre is set up in three areas this week. You can find me at the Coaches Lounge, Athletes Village Information Centre or the Athlete Entertainment area. Of course, you could also see me at one of the venues cheering on the athletes! One of the highlights for me yesterday was seeing Jeremy Wall, my good friends' little brother, run in the 100M Special Olympics.

After one day I've met quite a few people who are familiar with SIRC and the athletes, coaches and volunteers who have not encountered us before are interested to learn more. One athlete told me "that's really cool" which I thought was a pretty good compliment!

I've taken a more pictures that I'll post to the SIRC Facebook page so check it out later on today!

What are coaches reading?

According to a recent issue of Olympic Coach, a lot! And you would be surprised at some of the titles. Oh there are the usual suspects – Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training, Athletic Development: The Art and Science of Functional Sports Training , and Running – Biomechanics and Exercise Physiology Applied in Practice

But then there are some unusual titles. Books such as Mindset by Carol Dweck, with chapters on everything from “self-insight” to “what is success”; The Tao of Leadership: Lau Tzu’s Tao Te Ching Adapted for a New Age which teaches its readers how to be the very best kind of leader: be faithful, trust the process, pay attention, and inspire others to become their own leaders; and, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software a book about the mystery of why the whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its parts. Team dynamics and leadership qualities in a coach are areas where this book may prove helpful.

So what are you reading? Here are a few of the popular titles at the SIRC Toronto Regional Library:

• Speed for Sports Performance
• Exercise Technique Manual for Resistance Training
• What it takes to be #1: Vince Lombardi on Leadership
• The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit

Reference:
Five for the Road, Olympic Coach. Spring 2009. 21(2). P. 6-7.

Coaches Association of Ontario – The Time is Now

This past weekend SIRC attended the 4th Annual Coaches Association of Ontario Coaches Conference – The Time Is Now. The conference was attended by almost 300 delegates from across Ontario and was held at the University of Guelph. SIRC participated in the trade show portion of the conference and Amanda Street-Bishop, Information Specialist at the SIRC Regional office in Toronto, presented a Professional Development Workshop on Competitive Intelligence for Sport Coaches.

The Workshop covered:

• Where to find the best coaching resources
• How to optimize your searching techniques, and,
• The easiest way to access Canada’s National Sport Library

The presentation was very well received with some participants following along on their own laptops. The session was interactive and included some great questions from the audience for the SportDiscus™ database on Lawn Bowling, Volleyball drills and how to motivate a team before a game.

Other sessions at the conference included:

• Understanding Your Coaching Style
• Developing Athleticism – The Foundation of Long-Term Sport Success
• Hot Topics in Sport Psychology
• Increasing Leadership Roles For Women

Click here for a link to these sessions and others from the conference.

Coaching: Communities of Practice

A community of practice (CoP) was coined in 1991 to describe a group of people sharing a common concern or passion, who interact regularly to learn how to do it better. A recent article in JOPERD discusses how CoPs can be fantastic educational tools for interscholastic coaches. However, CoPs can be incorporated in many coaching situations as shown through research by Dr. Diane Culver and Dr. Pierre Trudel over the past few years.

How does CoP work?
A facilitator is appointed to be the “traffic cop” of the group. Their role is coordination only, ensuring a flow of discussion amoung the group.

What needs does CoP fulfill?

• Reflection and Mentorship
  o Members are exposed to perspectives of others and can developing trusting relationships.
• Adaptable Knowledge
  o Sharing of old and new ideas allow a flexibility to work in various environments.
• Competitive Nature of Coaches
  o Group controls the transfer of knowledge and over time cooperation between members should occur.
• Larger Educational Structure
  o Each member is considered an expert and contributor to the group.

For more articles relating to Communities of Practice (CoPs) contact AskALibrarian@sirc.ca

Coaching

Check out the latest SIRC Newsletter on Coaching!


Leadership has been described as a process of social influence in which one person can get the support of another to accomplish a goal or task. In order to be a good leader and coach you must possess certain skills and knowledge to be able to guide your team in the best direction to reach your goals. Studies have shown that a person with a growth mindset would believe that leadership abilities can be learned and acquired through effort and experience. With this in mind, coaching education and leadership training programs should consider focusing on helping coaches and leaders develop a growth mindset about their leadership abilities. With everything in life one must practice the necessary skills to be the best and the same goes for coaching. National standards are set by the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC) and its partners are implementing new frameworks to help coaches reach for the stars as coaches help their players. The sport landscape is always changing; this is the same for the coaching world.

http://www.sirc.ca/newsletters/november10/index.html

Coaching Do's and Don'ts

We all want our young athletes to be the best that they can be. And in order for athletes to be at their best, their coaches also need to be at their best. Supporting coaches through a very stressful competitive season should be high on everyone’s priority list. What can coaches do to focus less on stress and more on constructive teaching moments? A recent article in the SIRC Collection (Arnold, 2010) provides the following top 10 list of Do’s and Don’ts for coaches:

DON’T match your athlete’s negative mood, lead them to a more centered mindset
DO move beyond focusing on problems and focus on improving correct techniques or skills
DO provide challenges that will motivate your athletes
DO provide praise for athletes’ success (training and competition)
DO praise athletes character development as well as skill development
DON’T present a negative training environment that supports negative athlete feedback
DON’T focus on correcting large technique issues at competition, this is the time for tweaks and emotional support.
DO pay attention to parents and make them part of the athlete support team
DO treat all your athletes the same with a single set of over-riding rules
DO make it fun!!!

Full article reference from the SIRC Collection: Arnold, Alison, (2010). Top 10 Coach’s Sanity Tips for Competition Season, Technique 30(9), 26-27.

For more coaching information check out SIRC’s latest newsletter on Coaching Leadership or ask us a question at our booth at the Coaching Association of Canada’s Petro-Canada Sport Leadership Conference.

Coaches and the Female Athlete Triad

There are awkward conversations some coaches avoid having with their female athletes. One of these discussions may be about the menstrual cycle, especially by male coaches. This awkwardness can be avoided by educating your athletes on the Female Athlete Triad.
The three clusters of the triad are:

• Disordered Eating (poor nutrition),
• Menstrual dysfunction (irregular or loss of period), and
• Osteoporosis (low bone density)

Athletes should be educated on proper eating habits to maintain or balance the use of energy when training, as to prevent low-energy availability. The low-energy availability and excessive exercise can lead to a lack of estrogen causing amenorrhea (loss of period) or menstrual irregularities. A lack of estrogen, and poor nutrition (especially calcium) can lead to the third cluster, osteoporosis.

As coaches, the main focus should be on disordered eating, as this leads to the next two clusters. Women face many pressures these days to look a certain way, or have a certain body-type. For serious female endurance athletes, the pressures of training can produce the mind set of, “If I lose 5lbs, I can run faster.” These pressures can very easily lead an athlete into poor eating habits.

For more information on this topic please check the SIRC collection.
Female Athlete Triad Coalition

New Canadians Have New Opportunties

Statistics show that using sport is one of the most effective and fastest ways that New Canadians can assimilate into Canadian society. SIRC recently attended a “Sport and Diversity” session hosted by SPORT4ONTARIO at the Sport Alliance Building in Toronto, where three organizations presented on how they are expanding their services to insure that there are programs directed towards assisting New Canadians integrate into the rich Canadian sporting community.

The Coaches Association of Ontario (CAO) was awarded a grant from the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration and the Strategic Partnership Initiatives Youth Opportunities Program (SPIYOP). They are hosting 10 Coach Education For Newcomer Youth workshops in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) for newly landed Canadians ages 15-24, who are not currently attending school. The program provides an exceptional education in fair play, responsibility and safety, and child development phases, and each participant receives a coach workbook and resources, as well as a trained NCCP status in the national database. A great start to a new coaching life.

The Toronto Sports Council (TSC) was awarded a grant from True Sport to help increase the number of trained and certified youth sport leaders in the Jane-Finch communities in north Toronto. As a result, the communities will have a greater capacity to provide high quality sport programming opportunities for school age children.

And since soccer is such a global sport, most New Canadians arrive in Canada with a great amount of passion for the game already. The Ontario Soccer Association’s (OSA) “Soccer and Settlement” project connects New Canadians with organized, sanctioned soccer groups in specified communities and by doing so, they are linking communities and developing partnerships with other organizations that will serve to develop coach, referee and volunteer leaders for the future. Currently partnered with the Catholic Immigration Centre (CIC) which works with newcomers in the Ottawa area, they are connecting 66 soccer clubs in the nation’s capital with the OSA’s initiatives. The OSA is also creating a coaching program to train adult newcomers to coach or referee the game.

For more information on sporting programs for New Canadians, please visit SIRC.

Applause is the Parent's New Cheer!

Players play, coaches coach, referees officiate and parents cheer! They all have their role at a sporting event. It is pretty common place that parents cheer some form of encouragement from the sidelines in an effort to guide the child to experience a positive outcome. However, all too often, well intended parents become overly enthusiastic with advice and instruction. Turns out, this could be having a negative effect on the child, leading to embarrassment and affecting their self-esteem, at a time when their energy should be spent focused on the game, decision making and technique. On occasion, overzealous commentary from the stands has even escalated to the point that there is abuse of referees, and parents even getting into fights.

In an effort to curb overly enthusiastic parents during sporting events, organizations are starting to implement policies with respect to the amount and type of encouragement parents can deliver from the sidelines of youth sport. Last week, the Aurora Youth Soccer Club in Ontario, implemented a week of silence for house league matches to remind parents and spectators the game is about having fun, and to present the players with an opportunity to play soccer without constant instruction and noise from the sidelines, while parents were asked to cheer by way of applause and signs.

Hockey, no stranger to experiencing excessive parental coaching from the stands, goes so far to report that the number one reason cited for coaches, managers and officials of all ages leaving the sport is unacceptable parent behaviour. So last year, Hockey Alberta launched the “Respect in Sport Parent Program.” This one-hour online program for parents involves watching short videos on bad parental behaviour with follow up questions, in an effort to demonstrate acceptable, rewarding and respectful forms of behaviour and communication for all parties involved.

In cooperation with True Sport’s “What You Can Do: Parents,” which outlines promoting fair play and respectful behaviour, Sport Manitoba offers "The Guide to Sport Parents", providing scenarios, instructions, and reminders for parents who want to make their kids’ sports experiences as positive, constructive and inspiring as they can.

For more information on this topic, please visit SIRC.

SIRC Newsletter: High School Sport

September means back to school for most Canadians. Getting ready for the arrival of students can be a major task for teachers, coaches, and administrators. Questions may arise on anything from planning a fitness program to creating risk management strategies. As a student-athlete, knowing what coaches are looking for in tryouts or how to prepare for your university or college athletic future may be on your mind. SIRC wants to help you get prepared for the upcoming school year.



For more information check out the Newsletter online!

SIRC Newsletter - Coaching

Whether you are a grassroots or high performance coach, in the boardroom or in the field, this is an excellent time to think about your coaching style. When is the last time you thought about your coaching philosophy, evaluated guidelines or policies related to your work or took a coaching education course? There are great national and provincial associations out there to help you like Coaches of Canada, Coaching Association of Canada, Coaches Association of British Columbia, and Coaches Association of Ontario. As well as upcoming events this Fall such as the SPIN Summit and the Petro-Canada Sport Leadership Conference.

For more information check out the SIRC Newsletter online!

Networking is also Face-to-Face!

Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is, on average, about six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth. The ability to successfully network in the sports world is a talent on its own, and is one that is a necessary component to supporting a career in coaching, sports administration, communications or marketing, along with many more areas. The world is a much smaller place now due to the advents of technology, and there is an entire generation who do not understand the value of face-to-face networking. So exactly what is this and how do you do it?

First of all, a network is the web of people that you know, like and respect, and not just a measure of social distance between people. The more people you know and connect with, the more far-reaching your network will extend. Powerful networking skills are not to be underestimated, giving you an edge in any job market. When done properly, networking can be an influential tool that will put you in contact with the right people at the right time which will ultimately assist you in making your career path soar! There is significant value in meeting new people at sports competitions, conferences and meetings. 

Like all worthy relationships, a network of friends and colleagues needs to be maintained and nurtured. It is important to not hide behind your computer and text messaging every day and get out there to actually meet people face-to-face. This will pay off in the long run!

Some key tips to successful networking include:

• Stay in touch with people you like even if they can’t help you right now.
• When at a function, make efforts to speak with people you don’t know. Sit at a table to eat with strangers. Do not cling to your friends and colleagues.
• Really listen when someone is speaking with you and cue off their comments to keep the conversation going. Ask open ended questions.
• Remember a person’s name using it frequently during your conversation. They like this.
• Utilize your passion about a topic to share a story. Your energy will be infectious.
• If you are extremely shy, do not let this handcuff you. Seek some guidance to find the right tools for you to overcome this.

For more information on networking and careers in sport, please visit SIRC.

Knowledge in Action!

November is a busy month in the world of sport information sharing and knowledge transfer. With a variety of conferences and summits on the calendar, SIRC will be present in the following locations:

• Sport Canada Research Initiative Conference (SCRI) – Aylmer, Quebec (November 3, 2011)
SIRC hosts sport researchers, policy makers and practitioners sharing their knowledge and expertise with a vision to maximizing the practical applications of sport participation research and its potential contribution to sport participation policy in Canada. 


• Sport Innovation Summit (SPIN) – Toronto, Ontario (November 8-10, 2011)
Be sure to drop by the SIRC Resource Centre booth and check out the latest issue of the High Performance SIRCuit. 


• Petro Canada Sport Leadership Sportif Conference – Toronto, Ontario (November 10-12, 2011)
Debra Gassewitz, SIRC's president and CEO, will be presenting the Sport Management Stream Workshop 'Recruitment, Nominations and Orientation – How to attract and train sport leaders' on Saturday, November 12th. 


• Canadian Sport Policy Renewal  
The discussion paper "Towards a Renewed Canadian Sport Policy" is now available along with other sport policy renewal resources on the SIRC website.

For more information on our resources for these events, please visit SIRC.

Overtraining

Overtraining occurs when athletes go beyond their training regiments and do not allow enough time for the body to recover. This can damage muscles, tendons, and ligaments and even have a mental effect on the athlete. There are also cases when athletes become ill right before their major event due to overtraining. This is often caused by athletes who are already at their capacity training too hard in an effort to feel as though they’ve achieved their full training potential and thus depleting their reserves and compromising their immune systems.

One general principle known to all elite athletes and coaches training for major events is overload training. Athletes train for long hours and at high intensities. Overload is usually followed by a taper for recovery. However, when an athlete uses all they’ve got but still try to give more without the proper taper, the athlete will have depleted all their resources and become fatigued. If overload has gone wrong, this depletion does not help performance and may actually cause it to drop. Overtraining has occurred.

Overreaching is often a term heard in the context of overtraining. Overreaching is seen as short-term overtraining and refers to training that involves a brief period of overload, with inadequate recovery, that exceeds the athlete’s adaptive capacity. It is often debated whether overreaching is a normal part of training, however, monitoring this kind of training in order for the positive results to come out as opposed to the potential damaging results of burnout becomes the key factor.

Beyond the physical impacts of overtraining such as illness and injury, some of the risks of overtraining include guilt about not working hard enough, disruption of sleep, anxiety/stress, feelings of fatigue, burnout and maladaptive responses to poor performance.The problem here is discerning whether these are short-term effects of intense training or long-term effects of overtraining.

Athletes who are susceptible to overtraining can show the following characteristics, behaviours and attitudes

• Extreme perfectionist, extremely strong athletic identity
• Lack of knowledge or awareness regarding the importance of recovery
• Unrealistic expectations

The best way to prevent overtraining is to get rid of the notion that more is always better. Once an athlete has completed his training exercise the most simple and recommended part of the cycle is rest.

Source from the SIRC Collection:
Richardson, Sean O., Andersen, Mark B., and Morris, Tony. Overtraining Athletes: Personal Journeys in Sport. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics Publishers; c2008.

Coaching for Excellence

Why are some coaches deemed more successful than others?  What sets them apart?

There has been much research concentrated around the concept of identifying ideal characteristics of coaches. A recent article boils some of these concepts down and outlines why coaches succeed while others fail and highlights the following habits of effective coaches:

• Make training more challenging and more demanding than the competition your athletes are targeting
• Learn and develop as a coach at a faster rate than your athletes
• Accelerate your rate of learning faster than your opposition
• Enhance your creative thinking skills
• Coach individuals - even in team sports
• Ensure that every athlete you work with out-prepares (in every aspect) their opposition
• Adapt your training plans and programs to optimize their impact on each athlete at every training session
• Performance practice - not practice makes perfect
• Adopt an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach to talent development and performance enhancement
• Lead - The great coaches are leaders

So knowing which habits a coach should strive towards is most of the battle. But what are the things that should be avoided as a coach. There are reasons identified that coaches can fail:

• Compromise. Do not compromise on preparation
• Lacking belief in themselves
• Copying others. Be original, be creative. Adapt and improve upon others.
• Relying too much on learning from only within their own sport
• Relying too much on emotion
• Using the same programs over and over and over
• Failing to engage their athletes
• Lack of persistence
• Lack of vision
• Not spending enough time maximizing their strengths

A great coach doesn't hesitate to learn. Identifying where you are excelling and where you might make some changes or improvements to your coaching style can only benefit your coaching and your athletes.

Reference from the SIRC Collection:
(2012). A Pair of 10s: Two articles examining why coaches fail and what some do to succeed. Soccer Journal, 57(1), 44;46.

'I love watching you play?'

After three decades of informally surveying hundreds of college athletes, two former longtime coaches have become advocates for athletes and voices for youth. Both Bruce Brown and Rob Miller of Proactive Coaching LLC, have spent their last 12 years speaking to millions of athletes at colleges, high schools and youth leagues about their views on parents and sport.

When the college athletes were asked “what is your worst memory from playing youth and high school sports?”, the most popular response was: “the ride home with my parents.” The reason behind this is that young athletes are quicker in moving on from the game to everyday life, while often parents use the car ride home to analyze the game. After a young athlete has taken off his equipment he reverts back to being a kid.

On the other hand when asked what makes the young athlete feel great after a game,  the most popular response was hearing: “I love to watch you play.” This makes it clear to the athlete that their parent has taken notice of their son or daughter playing. Kids want their parents to be just that, the unconditional loving parent, leaving the sideline coaching to the coach, the calls to the officials and the game critiquing to the team.

However, it is noted that that parents aren’t making the ride home from games unbearable for their child on purpose. These aren’t the stereotypical angry parents who spends the game hollering and harassing the referees but rather the regular parent who can’t help but talk about the game on the ride home. So the important part is finding the balance when showing your child that you are involved with his or her activity.

Maybe parents should take a lesson from their parents ... “Overall, grandparents are more content than parents simply enjoy watching the child participate.” Brown explained while speaking to a high school. The grandparent is more than content watching the game and giving a hug or kiss after the game. They also support the child with “I love to watch you play” and at not criticizing play.

Signs of a overzealous parent

• Overemphasizing sport at the expense of sportsmanship
• Having different goals then your child
• Treated your child differently after a loss than a win
• Undermining the coach
• Living your own athletic dream through the child 

 Signs of an ideal sport parent

• Cheer on everyone on the team, not just your child
• Model appropriate behavior
• Know what is suitable to discuss with the coach
• Know your role
• Be a good listener and a great encourager 

Reference 
Henson, S. (2012) What Makes a Nightmare Sports Parent - - And What Makes A Great One. Retrieved from the Internet March 19, 2012.

Contact SIRC for more information on parents and sport!

Coaching Running - SIRC Newsletter

The signs of spring are in the air and the number of people running outside and enjoying the wonderful weather is increasing. Warm weather marks the beginning of race season and running clubs, track clubs, university teams, and high school teams are all starting to get back into their rigorous training schedules. For running coaches this is the perfect time to review their plan and athletes for the season. No matter what team/club you coach, you will encounter athletes with different styles, levels, and abilities and it is important to consider all of this when looking at the season ahead.

SIRC has compiled the following articles to help you learn more about the athletes you coach and how to help them reach their goals.

http://www.sirc.ca/newsletters/apr12/index.html

Making waves in the big pond!

On their pathway to higher competition, athletes find themselves adapting to different levels of competition and moving from being the "big fish in the little pond" to the "little fish in the big pond" as a recent article in the SIRC Collection says. This move from being the best at one level to being one of the many who are the best at the next can often be a psychological challenge for many talented athletes. Managing these complex emotions can be key to transitioning the athlete's performance.

Tips from the author:

• Focus on being your best. Comparing ourselves to others leads to focusing on our faults which causes declining confidence.
• Focus on the present. Don't get distracted by long-term goals or previous accomplishments, focus on how you can make the most of your current opportunities.
• Be coachable. You may have to make changes to your training to fit in with your new level of competition, you need to be open to the changes and willing to listen and learn.
• Make the most of your new resources. New levels of competition may bring new specialists (strength training, nutritionists, psychologists, etc.) to your coaching team. 
• Keep perspective. While your sporting achievements make up your athletic identity do not forget that it is only one part of a well-rounded person.
• Develop good habits now. Never delay learning all the little things and details that will improve your overall skill, bad habits learned early may be amplified at higher skill levels.
• Learn from Others. Talking to others who have "been there" may help you skip some of the pitfalls or better prepare you for what transitions lie ahead.

In the end, being open to learning new things and taking time to recognize accomplishments helps give an athlete a better perspective on transitioning to higher levels of competition. Athletes achieve their new levels by challenging themselves to be better. Keep the focus on moving forward and making personal improvements!

Source from the SIRC Collection:
Kimball, A.C. (2012). Making the Transition. Splash, 20(2). 16.

Body Type and Training Athletes

How can body shape affect an athlete’s reaction to training and recovery?

We know that every athlete is different. However, when it comes to body types, these differences in shape may determine how your body adapts to high intensity training. Some will argue that it is all common sense, when you carry some extra weight your performance is impacted. However, sometimes having a little extra weight can benefit swimmers and bikers on a flat surface while at the same time being far from beneficial for runners.

A more muscled athlete, known as a mesomorph, is generally not as good as a skinnier (ectomorph) athlete at tolerating high level of speed and lactate tolerance training. It means that the more muscle you have on your body the longer you may need to take recover from the high end efforts. Coaches and athletes will need to be mindful of this when building and designing the training plan.

Body type also plays a role in gender adaptations. Different hormone make ups related to body shape also affect training and recovery. Males for the most part cannot tolerate high intensity training as well as women. This is due to their higher levels of testosterone. Training hard impacts testosterone levels and therefore tends to cause more damage for those with higher level of testosterone. This doesn’t mean that men can’t train as hard as women, again it just means that they need to factor in more recovery time.

Don’t think that women are getting off easy on this. Though female athletes recover faster from hard training since the impact is not as severe on their hormonal balances, the science of body types also has an impact on female tolerance of high intensity training. Females with an endomorph body type (soft and round and gains fat easily) will tolerate higher volume of hard training than females with a leaner mesomorph build (muscled athletes). So they too will have to factor this into recovery time.

In general, athletes and coaches need to know that body type matters in training and recovery. If you are male, or have a more muscular build your body’s systems will be impacted more heavily by high intensity or high volume training. By watching diet and factoring in extra recovery time, athletes will be better equipped to adapt to these types of training sessions.

Resource from the SIRC Collection: 
Manietta K. Shape Matters. Australian Triathlete. February 2012;19(4):34-36.

Contact SIRC for more information on training and recovery for athletes!