Dr.Hab., Professor S.Z. Khubbiev¹
Dr.Hab., Professor V.L. Pashuta¹
Dr.Hab., Professor N.V. Romanenko¹
Dr.Hab., Professor A.V. Kozlov^1
1Military Institute of Physical Training, St. Petersburg

Keywords: individuality, individualized training, individualization, customized training, customization, sport training.

Background. Sport accomplishments of the leading athletes serving in the national Armed Forces are appreciated by the nation with great pride and respect. However, not all of them by far enjoy good opportunities to realize their individual athletic potentials. Thus L.I. Lubysheva points out that virtually every elite athlete may potentially win Olympics conditional on the best individual sporting gifts and resources being mobilized and built up by an adequate modern individualized training system driven by high technologies. It is not unusual, however, that many gifted athletes retire from sports being unable to fully mobilize their gifts and resources – for the reason that the standard training systems were incompletely if ever individualized for their needs and progress agendas [5].

It should be mentioned that a training system individualizing project will be based on the personality typing tests to find the factors of influence on the competitive progress; identify the grouping criteria to sort up the trainees in the progress groups and training stages, with the training systems being effectively individualized to unfold everybody’s competitive resource for success.

Objective of the study was to provide theoretical grounds for the training system individualization related notions in application to the sporting military service personnel.

Results and discussion. Modern athletic training process individualizing concepts consider trainings as the complicated theoretical education and practical excellence system with multiple professional contributors [4]. This means that the individualized training system should be generally designed on the optimal versatility and goal tree concepts.

The optimal versatility concept implies that the control system versatility should be as wide as the controlled subject versatility, with the only limitation for the distorted/ damaged complex system. In the individualized training system terms it means that top sport mastery and competitive fitness may be reached when the personality/ professional qualities of each contributor to the training process (coach etc.) are at least compatible with the athlete’s ones. Each training process actor/ contributor is expected facilitate the individual training process with full appreciation of the personality/ sporting qualities and resources of the athlete to effectively design and manage the training system, with the athlete being viewed as an equal subject of the process. Inconsistencies in the versatility may be prevented by a few rules: thus the versatility range expansion on top of the hierarchical structure should be secured by some versatility limitations on its lower tiers – since the versatility growth at the lower levels may undermine the system.

Reference literature and our own experience show that the same training methods, models and tools may be widely different in their practical benefits for every athlete. Sometimes the same athletic mastery may be attained by widely different training methods, models and tools due to serious differences in the individual backgrounds. If an individual is considered as a non-linear dynamic system, such effects may be explained by certain properties of such systems, with the same inputs often resulting in widely different outputs; with the combined causes А and В bringing the effects totally different from those generated by each of them separately; and with the complex system performances never interpretable as combinations of their constituents [2].

It is through consideration for the non-linear system regularities and properties that one may avoid uncertainties in the athletic training process and have a feel how wide the consequences of every decision and action may be. Otherwise we have to progress by a trial and error (intuitive) method in the sport practice being unable to effectively solve problems coming up in the athletic training process and analyze its unobvious regularities. It is not always possible to objectively rate the athletic progress and forecast it. All these and other considerations need to be factored in the sport theory and practice.

Since a modern training system is the multiannual and multisided hierarchical socio-educational structure, it may be designed on a goal tree concept. Building a tree of goals for athletic trainings involves creating a kind of special structure. To do this, we should first find the number of levels of the main goal, and then a list of conditions and means to achieve the interim goals at every level. Such a goal tree with its timeframe will show the interim progress milestones and final objective of the athletic training process to provide a basis for the individualized training system management on a most effective and efficient basis.

Effects of the individual personality/ athletic traits on the athletic training process and its outcomes are never linear. The relevant terms need to be unified for their understanding by the sport specialists on a consistent basis. Such terms include individuality, individualized training, individualization, customized training and customization. Provisions of the modern sport theory may be used to revise the training process individualization and customization algorithms and effectively use them to design the theoretically grounded individualized/ typed training systems.

Individuality may be described as the root term for the other above derivatives. It refers to the unique combination of the personality health standards, development, fitness, behavioral models, knowledgebase, mental and social traits. When analyzing different levels of human design in the individual, personality and performance aspects, B.G. Ananyev defined individuality as the supreme feature ‘indicative of the internal regulation loop for the variety of human qualities’ [1], with the system factors including the key typological qualities of the nervous system. These qualities are connected with the other personality substructures and performance aspects including motivations, abilities, progress styles, values and priorities, tolerance to stressors etc. that are integrated into a sort of cybernetic system [7]. It is clear that the efforts to optimize the training system are more effective when the process actors’ individualities are versatile enough to offer a range of progress opportunities. A sport training system will be designed to factor in, among other things, the impacts of the relevant ethnic physical education traditions and individual ethnic/ genetic predispositions although these issues still need to be explored by the sport theory and practice. Individual progress in excellence trainings need to prioritize the unique qualities and performance styles of every athlete. The most gifted and genetically resourceful athletes should be tested to profile their qualities and resources and design on this basis the most appropriate training systems.

Individual training need to be based, in the context of the versatility prioritizing education, on the following provisions: age-, gender-, ethnicity-specific (related to language, national traditions, culture, mentality etc.) and other individual traits; an athlete’s progress shall be designed on an individual basis; the individual training system shall be customized to the actual needs, capacities, interests and experience of each athlete; the sporting knowledge, skills and competences shall be built up so as to take advantage of the best individual sporting qualities and resources for professional and social progress; training process shall be facilitated by the professionally and personally sensitive cultural environment; and the coach and other contributors to the training process shall be knowledgeable and skillful in the training system design and management to encourage the individual athletic and personality progress.

Training system individualization may be defined as the individualized training implementation technology geared to customize the training process elements and key solutions (training methods, models and tools) as required by the trainees’ individualities. This moment is important for categorizing the notions of individualization and customization. 

Training system individualization is geared to facilitate the athletic self-fulfillment by a special emphasis on the personal gifts, resources, special advantages and fitness tools to complement the standard and commonly accepted excellence models so as to secure the highest competitive progress. The prudently designed and managed individualized training systems in elite sports may excel the best competitive progress aspects even when the other individual resources are far from perfection – due to the individualized training system focus on the fitness components being harmonized with the individual advantages being emphasized. This goal may be attained, in our opinion, when the training scopes and intensities are adequately designed and managed to open up and cultivate the individual sporting resources and credentials and remove the upcoming componential disproportions in the competitive fitness building process.

Conclusion. The modern training systems imply the process being effectively individualized and customized in the theoretical design and practical management aspects throughout the whole long-term athletic training period. The approaches analyzed herein may be used to form training groups classified by the key typological factors for success of the athletic training system, with every athlete offered an individual training trajectory/ route to ensure that the training and competitive processes are duly designed and managed by the scopes, intensities, specifics and content to mobilize the individual potential of every athlete.

References

1. Ananyev B.G. Chelovek kak predmet poznaniya [Man as subject of knowledge]. Leningrad, 1969. 339 p.
2. Bekman I.N. Nelineynaya dinamika slozhnykh sistem: teoriya i praktika. Metanauka. Evolyutsiya sistem [Nonlinear dynamics of complex systems: theory and practice. Metascience. Evolution of systems]. Lecture  course and textbook materials. M., 2018. 613 p.
3. Ilyin E.P. Psikhofiziologiya fizicheskogo vospitaniya [Psychophysiology of physical education]. M., 1983. 234 p.
4. Klimov E.A. Vvedenie v psikhologiyu truda [Introduction to labor psychology]. University textbook. M.: Akademiya publ., 2004. 336 p.
5. «Krugly stol» zhurnala «Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury», provedenny sovmestno s administratsiey g. Smolenska, Smolenskim gumanitarnyim universitetom na temu: «Metodologiya individualizatsii v fizicheskom vospitanii i sporte» [Round table of the journal Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, held jointly with Smolensk and Smolensk Humanitarian University administration on the topic: “Methodology of individualization in physical education and sport”].Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. 2007. no. 6. pp. 73-77.
6. Nazaretyan A.P. Tsivilizatsionnye krizis v kontekste Universalnoy istorii: sinergetika, psikhologiya i futurologiya [Civilizational crises in context of universal history: synergetics, psychology and futurology]. M.: Per'se publ., 2004. 211 p.
7. Nesterenko G., Grebennikov V., Emelyanov M [ed.], Tsymbal S. [res.ed.] et al. Pedagogika mnogoobraziya [Pedagogy of manifold]. Study guide. Herson: OLDI-PLuS publ., 2016. 420 p.

Corresponding author: khubbiev@gmail.com

Abstract

Sport accomplishments of the leading athletes serving in the national Armed Forces are appreciated by the nation with great pride and respect. However, not all of them by far are given good opportunities to realize their individual athletic potentials. The individualized military athletic training system may be outlined as the complex educational system designed on the optimal versatility and goal tree concepts. Military athlete will be viewed by the sport training system as an individual, personality, trainee and equal actor. Effects of the individual personality/ athletic traits on the athletic training process and its outcomes are never linear. The relevant terms including individuality, individualized training, individualization, customized training and customization may be defined as follows. Individuality is the root term for the other above derivatives; individualization means the individual training system design concept that implies the personal training being customized to the individual traits and progress agenda; customization means the customized training implementation technology; with the training process individualizing and customizing tools geared to economize the military athlete’s training process. It should be mentioned that the training process individualizing and customizing tools will be reasonably applied throughout the whole multiannual sport training system in every its element.

The above definitions and the relevant assumptions may be used to form training groups classified by the key typological factors for success of the athletic training system, with every athlete offered an individual training trajectory/ route to ensure that the training and competitive processes are duly designed and managed by the scopes, intensities, specifics and contents to mobilize the individual potential of every athlete.