The theory and methodology of athletes’ preparation are based on the specific guidelines, namely paradigms and governing ideas which are based on a set of special principles - sustainable and recurring relationships: between the natural potential and capabilities to achieve a high level of development of the components of sports mastery; between training and extra-training factors influencing the athlete’s body and its feedback; between motor qualities, components of different aspects and types of preparedness; between the components of preparedness and optimal structure of competitive activity. They play a central role in implementation of rules that specify the behavior in situations typical of athletes’ training and limit to a reasonable extent the creative part of coaching. Not less important is their use in planning and performing research, interpreting the results, especially in the part that deals with disciplines of biomedical profile, where we often meet with cases of detachment from the realities of modern sport.