To devise and undertake a 6-week training program to see if I can improve my cardiovascular system. Planning and implementation: I am going to undertake a 6-week training program aimed at improving my cardiovascular fitness. Cardiovascular fitness is the ability to exercise the entire body for long periods of time. The body parts mainly involved are the heart, lungs and circulatory system. The more obvious outward signs of poor cardiovascular performance are things like being out of breath after relatively little exercise and extended recovery time.
My cardiovascular fitness will be tested at the start of the training program and at the end of the training program to see if there has been any improvement in my cardiovascular fitness. There are many ways to test cardiovascular fitness. I am going to use the cooper’s 12 minute run and the multi stage fitness test, (bleep test).
The multi stage fitness test can be used to measure our VO2 max. To measure our VO2 max we perform a number of 20 metre shuttle runs in time to beeps from a pre-recorded tape. After each minute the time interval between beeps gets shorter, so our running speed has to increase. We keep going until we can no-longer keep up with the pace set by the beeps. At this point we stop and record the level. We can check our score with published tables and so work out our VO2 max. The test is easy to use and motivating, particularly when done with a group of people. It is the most widely used of all fitness tests.
My training program: Day Training type Monday 1 1/2 hour varied pace swimming session Wednesday 1 hour long slow continuous XC cycle ride Friday 1/2 hour long slow continuous XC running Saturday 4 hour varied pace XC cycle ride Training types chosen: Varied pace: varying between sprinting and long distance Long slow continuous: non-stop, constant slow speed I have taken some factors into account when devising my training programme, and these are: I enjoy cross country (XC) cycling I enjoy swimming I do not frequently run so I would like.