Motor Skills

In Stage five, skill development is extremely specific and done as a full time job usually. Mastery of skills goes hand in hand with your chosen sport and the tactical development of that sport. Broad motor skills become important to keep the athlete healthy in basic movement patterns and to counterbalance the physical and mental strain of your sport.

Conditioning

In Stage five, year round conditioning is pretty much the norm to stay competitive. Most conditioning is done directly related to your sport. Don’t forget to include some fun conditioning on your down time though. It’s more important than you may realize.

Flexibility

In Stage five, you have pretty much figured your body out and have come full-circle. You now spend a lot of time trying to preserve or regain the flexibility that you took for granted as a kid. You’ve also become smarter though and spend that extra time working on flexibility instead of strength and power. Sport specific stretching is used often, just don’t get uneven or you’ll get hurt for sure.

Strength & Power

In Stage five, you again come full circle by mastering body weight control and avoiding any exercise that could cause injury. Here weight isn’t as important as knowing your sport and doing what is necessary to maintain your strength and power ability.

Speed

In Stage five, speed isn’t usually increased all that much, but the perception of speed often is because of experience in doing your sport at such a high level. This is the stage where all the work you put in is realized because it is put into game speed. Knowing your sport & your position can make you faster.