Welcome to the February 2007 Coaching & Sport Section! My name is Deborah Cadorette, this month's Coaching & Sport section editor.

In this issue, I address coaching and sport concerns relative to the heart. The United States Sports Academy segment includes information about cardiac fitness training. The Matters of the Heart in Coaching & Sport segment includes summaries and excerpts from best selling authors about this month's topic.

In our final segment, NFHS Fundamentals of Coaching, Tim Flannery, assistant director for the National Federation of High Schools (NFHS), keeps sport administrators and coaches abreast to new educational opportunities, including a new Distance Coaching Education Program now available through NFHS.

Deborah Cadorette
Coaching & Sports Section Editor

THE SPORT JOURNAL

Cardiovascular - Respiratory Adaptation

Rhythmic and continued exercise requires a greater use of oxygen at the muscle site. Therefore, the routes of uptake and transport of oxygen from the air to muscle tissues must adapt to the increased rate of delivery and extraction. A measurement of cardiorespiratory endurance is the VO2 max.

The VO2 max is the maximal oxygen uptake during the maximal level of exertion, and it differs from person to person. In order to compare exercise-related data from person to person, the data is expressed relative to a specific level of intensity of exercise, and represented as a percent of VO2 max.

To illustrate its importance, consider that endurance training can change the VO2 max by as much as 20%. This is the first indication that true structural and biochemical changes have occurred to metabolize the increased oxygen uptake. The first apparent result of an exercise is the immediate increase in heart rate. The average resting rate is 80 beats per minute; however, during exercise the heart rate can go as high as 190 beats per minute. After several months of endurance training, heart rates can go as low as 40 beats per minute. This reflects several factors of adaptation to exercise, including adaptations one of which is the autonomic nervous system.

However, one aspect related directly to heart rate is that despite the lowered heart rate, the heart provides a greater cardiac output because the stroke column increases by as much as 80%. In a highly trained athlete, the refilling of blood within the heart is more complete. More importantly, strength and power of the left ventricle is dramatically increased. The left ventricle undergoes hypertrophy with endurance training, which means that the actual heart muscle mass and volume are increased.

Heart size is greater in endurance-trained athletes by as much as 25%, as compared to that of a sedentary person. Moreover, the contraction of contractile proteins is increased and the composition of the protein changed. Also, oxygen delivery of the blood supply to the heart is improved because the number and size of capillaries per cross-sensational areas of muscle increases by as much 50%.

Endurance training also improves the muscle content of myoglobin by as much as 80%. Myoglobin carries oxygen within the muscle tissue. These dramatic biochemical adaptations in the oxygen delivery system parallel those of the heart, and thus complement the entire scope of the biochemical adaptation for a better performance by the trained athlete.

Blood Volume and Composition

There are three major changes in the blood due to endurance training: 1) increased blood volume, 2) increased hematocrit (i.e. increase in the total number of red blood cells (RBC), and 3) decrease in viscosity. Blood volume can increase by as much as 20%. However, the increase in RBC is less pronounced and, as a consequence, the viscosity of the blood decreases.

The increase in blood volume is the key factor of importance for an endurance-trained athlete. The increased blood volume enhances O2 delivery as well as microcirculation. The increase in microcirculation is even more pronounced due to the reduced viscosity of the blood. A trained athlete also has a greater capacity to clear lactate from the muscle and utilize lactate as an energy substrate. Thus, the level of blood lactate in a trained athlete is lower than that of a sedentary person. This phenomenon is referred to as a lactate shift. A trained athlete therefore has greater endurance with less fatigue and cramps due to decreased levels of blood lactate.

This complete article and numerous others on conditioning young athletes can be found at the United States Sports Academy website in The Sports Journal. The last part of this article is specific to cardiovascular training and includes important information coaches should understand about blood volume in young athletes who participate in such sports as soccer that require intense cardiovascular conditioning.

Matters of the Heart in Coaching & Sport

Matters of the heart in coaching and sport can make or break a program. We witness numerous incidents in sport where the integrity of a program is tested. Physical conditioning of the heart may be addressed while the spiritual and psychological perceptions of the heart are left to chance. Coaches are in a powerful position to influence athletes' thoughts, actions, and behaviors.

Coaches with extreme expectations of selflessness, integrity, and respect develop athletes who are disciplined, caring, young men and women. Coaches are role models. Coaches must raise the bar, take charge, and hold athletes and assistant coaches accountable for their actions. Clear expectations and examples of upstanding behavior must be provided. The heart plays an essential role in decision making that supports these expectations. Coaches and athletes may find the following best selling authors, publications, and websites useful and inspirational:

Ken Blanchard on the art of influence in his books, The Heart of a Leader and Everyone's a Coach with Don Shula.

". . . we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." (Blanchard, The Heart of a Leader)

". . . think back to a leader you had - a parent, teacher, coach, or boss who got great performance from you. More than likely, this was a leader who combined tough and nice. You knew that person cared about you, but that he or she would not let up on you in the quest for excellence." (Blanchard & Shula, Everyone's a Coach)

A book to read, and read again is Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx (2003). "This is a life-changing book. You'd have to be a slug on a rock not to be impacted by the messages in this book," says Steve Moulton, ESPN Radio. "Jeffrey Marx has used the most violent of American games to show how men and boys should not be afraid to look for love," according to Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated.

The following excerpts from Marx's book provide a taste of his philosophy.

"I felt that I validated myself as a man every time I knocked you flat on your back. But I tell you, those kinds of concepts don't make good husbands, they don't make good fathers, they don't make good sons, and they don't make good friends. They leave boys in a tremendous sense of confusion."

"You have to be physically tough on them," Seneca Valley High School coach Terry Changuris was quoted as saying of the teenagers who played for him. "You have to push them to the brink, and either they are going to break or they are going to stand up and be a man. That's how you change these young boys into being men.

Bif was incredulous. "We ought to get a lifetime contract to play against this guy," he scoffed. "We'd beat them every time we'd play because he has no idea what he's talking about. Fifty boys together, fifty boys that love each other and that are well affirmed and well loved by their coaches, will smack those guys anytime, in anything. Being a father. Being a son. Being a football player. Being a doctor. Being an astronaut. Being a human being. Being anything." (Marx, Season of Life)

Deepak Chopra's book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, addresses the importance of acknowledging the perceptions of one's heart. Coaches are in a powerful position of influence at the center of the sport experience. Coaches are in control of the choices they make and how they affect the lives of the athletes they coach. The following is an excerpt from The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success:

"There is a very interesting mechanism that the universe has to help you make spontaneously correct choices. The mechanism has to do with sensations in your body. Your body experiences two kinds of sensations: one is a sensation of comfort; the other is a sensation of discomfort. At the moment you consciously make a choice, pay attention to your body and ask your body, "If I make this choice, what happens?" If your body sends a message of comfort, that's the right choice. If your body sends a message of discomfort, then it's not the appropriate choice.

For some people the message of comfort and discomfort is in the area of the solar plexus, but for most people it's in the area of the heart. Consciously put your attention in the heart and ask your heart what to do. Then wait for the response - a physical response in the form of a sensation. It may be the faintest level of feeling, but it's there, in your body.

Only the heart knows the correct answer. Some people think the heart is mushy and sentimental. But it's not. The heart is intuitive, it's holistic, it's contextual, it's relational. It doesn't have a win-lose orientation. It taps into the cosmic computer - the field of pure potentiality, pure knowledge, and infinite organizing power - and takes everything into account. At times it may not even seem rational, but the heart has a computing ability that is far more accurate and far more precise than anything within the limits of rational thought." (Chopra)