How do I know if I'm training correctly as an athlete?
To best plan an athlete’s competitive season, it is crucial to assess their fitness level both at the beginning of the preparation period and throughout the season.
Athletic trainers use tests that provide an idea of the athlete’s current physical condition at a given point in the season. This allows for precise planning of future workloads to ensure they are truly effective – neither too intense nor too light.
It is clear that to obtain data that closely reflects the athlete’s maximum performance potential, and is not derived from indirect, approximate mathematical formulas, the test must require a near-maximum effort, resembling an actual race.
However, in many sports, obtaining this data can be a major obstacle: if we are in the middle of a training load period, I cannot push my athlete with tests as demanding as a race.
Their body is fatigued, accumulating tiredness from weeks of training.
A tired body is a weak body. A weak body is at risk of injury.
If I’m putting my athlete through a highly intense training cycle and mistakenly add a maximum effort test, I risk causing injuries that will affect the rest of the season.
So how can you know if you’re ready for another week of work, or if you need a rest period before pushing again?
How can you determine whether you’ve sufficiently recovered after a rest week and are ready to start a new training cycle?
Is it possible to evaluate your condition without unnecessary risks?
The answer is yes, and you can do it through BIA.
Never heard of it?
BIA stands for Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis.
The bioimpedance meter is a device equipped with several electrodes that are applied to the hands and feet of the subject.
A small dose of electric current is then passed through the body.
The current flow is altered by the water and cellular membranes it encounters along the way.
These slight delays are translated into values that are analyzed by specific software, providing a detailed reading of the physical condition of the body being examined.
Unlike a scale, which only tells you how much you weigh, BIA provides information about your body’s fat mass (although the measurement is not highly accurate and should be paired with other assessments like skinfold tests) and muscle mass, as well as indicating whether your cells are adequately hydrated or if you’re in a state of dehydration or water retention.
Not only athletes or overweight individuals following a weight loss program can benefit from this exam – even a healthy, normoweight person has an interest in understanding the true composition of their body.
By interpreting the data from the test, you can observe significant variations in different body compartments throughout various life stages, during a weight loss journey, or within a sports training program.
For example, you can observe changes in:
- Total water
- Intracellular water
- Extracellular water
- Lean mass
- Cellular mass
- Fat mass
If an athlete has been pushing through a grueling training cycle for weeks but neither they nor their coach recognize the signs of overtraining (physical and mental exhaustion) that the body is sending and continue pushing harder, they risk undoing all the progress they’ve made.
In fact, a training cycle that is too intense or one that is correctly intense but continues for too many weeks, combined with an unspecific nutrition plan not suited to the demands of the training, can lead to a forced stop that could last several weeks.
If the athlete were instead to undergo regular BIA tests, they could monitor their active cellular mass (or muscle mass) and verify that there hasn’t been a decline in this component (as often happens in overtraining), or take timely action to adjust the training cycle if necessary.
In endurance sports like running, cycling, triathlon, rowing, and cross-country skiing, a key parameter to monitor is cellular hydration status.
Sports performance is closely linked to the level of dehydration the athlete experiences during a race: a 4-5% loss in extracellular water decreases physical efficiency by 20%. Essentially, you’re operating with only four-fifths of your potential.
When muscle cells lack sufficient hydration, fatigue increases because water is drawn from the blood’s liquid portion, causing a drop in blood pressure and increasing cardiac stress.
If the athlete could arrive on race day with optimal extracellular hydration (around 45%), they would reduce both the risk of dehydration during the competition and the chance of muscle injuries.
Another important parameter provided by the BIA test is called the “phase angle.”
In simple terms, the phase angle reflects the health of your cellular membranes, indicating their integrity and the distribution of water within and outside the membranes.
Membranes act like customs barriers: they hold organs and cellular fluids in place and regulate everything that enters and exits the cell.
If you have a high phase angle value, it means your cells are healthy, and their membranes are effectively working to prevent harmful agents like toxins and waste substances from entering the cell.
The phase angle is a good indicator of overall health because it measures cellular integrity and, therefore, functionality.
In general, high phase angle values indicate good health, while low values should be further investigated in relation to the individual’s clinical history.
Phase angle values are influenced by age, sex, and BMI (Body Mass Index, i.e., the ratio between weight and height).
It’s also important to note that the phase angle can vary depending on your body composition, such as muscle mass gain or loss, or the onset of edema or inflammation.
Various lifestyle factors can significantly impact phase angle variability, including:
- Exposure to toxins
- Consumption of highly processed foods
- Lack of quality sleep
- Physical, mental, and emotional stress
- Lack of consistent physical activity
- Excessive consumption of coffee, alcohol, and refined sugars
One example of the importance of this test was highlighted by a study conducted in Brazil by Dr. Priscila Custodio Martins’ team at the Research Center in Kinanthropometry and Human Performance at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Florianópolis. The study, published in 2021, was titled “Phase Angle is Associated with 10- and 30-Meter Sprint Times and Sprint Endurance in Young Soccer Players.”
The study aimed to “examine the association between phase angle, bioelectrical impedance vector analysis (BIVA), and physical performance components in male youth soccer players.”
The hypothesis was that a high phase angle value detected in a subject could correspond to a better sports performance.
The BIA test would thus serve to predict which soccer player would have better sprint times compared to a teammate with lower phase angle values.
Sixty-two players from two professional soccer academies were recruited and subjected to bioimpedance analysis to obtain phase angle values.
The results suggested that young soccer players with higher phase angle values, indicating better cellular integrity and functionality, perform better in anaerobic running activities like single 10- and 30-meter sprint speeds and repeated sprint endurance tasks.
The research team noted that “it is not always possible to perform physical assessments that require maximum effort from players during the season to monitor their fitness levels. From our results, the phase angle emerges as a non-invasive indicator of cellular health, obtained under resting conditions, that should be considered in the context of screening tools used in adolescent athletes due to its relationship with soccer-specific anaerobic running activities, such as sprint speed.”
An athlete who wants to take their sports programming seriously should not overlook regular check-ups with the bioimpedance test.
Knowing your body composition to monitor cellular hydration and active cellular mass levels helps improve overall fitness and sports performance.
Whether we are talking about power sports or endurance sports, this measurement is a fundamental tool for:
- Accurately planning training loads and recovery times
- Organizing a personalized nutrition plan
- Monitoring cellular hydration levels
If you want to discover how to become an even stronger athlete than you are today, join us: choose the From Zero To Hero program and become a super athlete!
Luca Russo
Dr. in Sports Science
Personal Trainer, Athletic Trainer
RESOURCES:
Phase Angle Is Related to 10 m and 30 m Sprint Time and Repeated-Sprint Ability in Young Male Soccer Players by Priscila Custódio Martins (1,*), Anderson
Santiago Teixeira ( 2,3 [OrcID]) , Luiz Guilherme ANTONACCI Guglielmo (2), Juliana Sabino Francisco (1), Diego Augusto Santos Silva (1), Fábio Yuzo
Nakamura (4 [OrcID]) and Luiz Rodrigo Augustemak de Lima (5 [OrcID])
1: Research Center in Kinanthropometry and Human Performance, Sports Center, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianopolis 88040-900, SC, Brazil
2: Physical Effort Laboratory, Sports Center, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis 88040-900, SC, Brazil
3: Research Group for Development of Football and Futsal, Sports Center, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis 88040-900, SC, Brazil
4: Associate Graduate Program in Physical Education UPE/UFPB, João Pessoa 58051-900, PB, Brazil
5: Institute of Physical Education and Sport, Federal University of Alagoas, Maceió 57072-900, AL, Brazil
*: Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(9), 4405; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094405
Received: 2 February 2021 / Revised: 18 March 2021 / Accepted: 20 March 2021 / Published: 21 April 2021
