Models and Interaction of Intensive Training and Sport Performance of 14–15-Year-Old Athletes in Rhythmic Gymnastics

Research  background  and  hypothesis. The  efficacy  of  athlete’s  sport  performance  depends  on  the  targeted training in certain periods, organization, management, individual adaptation of an athlete to the loads of training and competitions.  Research aim of this work was to determine the impact of intensive training on sport performance of 14–15 year old athletes in rhythmic gymnastics and their optimization.  Research methods. The experiment resulted in modeling two different training programs and establishing the structure of the content of the training programs, as well as athletes’ sports performance. The training loads protocols registered the time for choreography, element mastering, competitive routines and athletic training in each training session. The efficacy of the training programs was established registering the realization of competitive activities under competitive conditions according to the number of points received by the gymnast of each training program and according to the place won. When we tried to establish if the training sessions and competitive loads matched the specificity of competitive activities, we registered the changes in the athletes’ heart rate during different training sessions.Research  results.  Training  of  athletes  in  two  training  programs  was  different  –  their  training  loads  were  not significantly different – from 672 to 697 hours a year, as well as the indices of the training days – from 5.4 to 5.6 days a week, but the training content differed significantly. In most effective training program choreographic training dominated (30.9%). Statistically significant differences (p  0.05). Discussion and conclusion. Sports performance of 14–15-year-old athletes in rhythmic gymnastics was mostly influenced  by  the  time  for  mastering  competitive  routines  (r  =  0.836);  however,  the  research  did  not  establish differences  in  intensifying  training.  Besides  the  importance  of  integral  athletic  fitness,  explosive  strength,  and strength endurance, the research established the significance of aerobic fitness (r  = 0.704) for sports performance. Moreover, the significance of body composition indices increased in comparison with previous training years: body height (r = –0.819), body weight (r = –0.657), and BMI (r = –0.836).Keywords: rhythmic gymnastics, training, performance, metamodel.