Station 1: Press ups- This exercise will work my biceps, triceps, deltoids, pectoral and abdominal muscles. This will help me to increase the explosive strength in my upper arms and upper body. This will hopefully enable me to be more effective when holding the ball up while waiting for support from my team-mates or to be able to outmuscle opponents off the ball once I have completed my 6 week training program. For the first 2 weeks of the circuit I will be doing 20 press-ups.
During weeks 3 and 4 I will increase this to 30 press-ups and for weeks 5 and 6 I will increase the number of repetitions again to 40 press-ups. I am increasing the number of press-ups I do by 10 repetitions every 2 weeks so that I can build up more strength in my upper-body and to show how I am progressing through the weeks. Station 2: The Illinois run- In this exercise I will set up a course with cones that I have to weave in and out of making sure that I move my body well to keep my balance while weaving through the cones. This run will also help to improve certain muscle groups including the quadriceps, abdominals, hamstrings and the gastrocnemius.
This type of exercise will help improve my cardiovascular fitness. Over the 6 weeks I will shorten the distance between each of the cones. For the first 2 weeks the cones will be 2 metres apart, in weeks 3 and 4 the cones will be 1.5 metres apart and in weeks 5 and 6 they will be 0.5 metres apart. Doing this will help me to improve my agility more effectively and will also allow me to show my progression over the 6 weeks. This should allow me to move my body quicker and help me when playing football as I will be able to evade tackles more effectively or quickly change direction to get to a wayward ball first.
Station 3: Bench dips- This is a very good exercise for increasing the strength in the upper body and the arms as the muscles involved are the biceps, triceps, abdominals, latissimus dorsi, deltoids and pectorals. This will help me when playing football as I will be able to compete physically with my opponents when battling to gain possession of the ball and if I do have possession of the ball then I can use my body weight and strength to an advantage and shield the ball with my body making it difficult for the opponents to get the ball off me.
Station 4: I will set up a course of 10 cones in the garden and with a football I will dribble up and down through these cones once keeping my head up throughout. If I hit a cone then I will have to go back and start from the beginning of the course. I thought up this exercise as it will help improve my ball control and will make me a bigger threat when running with the ball in a match situation as I will be quicker and more aware with the ball at my feet and also more agile, so will be able to weave through the opposition at greater speed, as this exercise would help improve my agility because I am having to move my body in different directions constantly as I dribble through the cones with the ball..
Station 5: Squat jumps- This is a good exercise to improve power and explosive strength as it is using many of the muscle groups. The arms are being used for the swing and the lift, the legs are being used for the spring and all the other muscles in your body are working to exert pressure upwards. This should help improve my explosive strength and give me more spring when jumping up for headers .
Station 6: Leg raises- For this exercise I simply have to lie back on a mat with my arms held behind my head. Keeping my legs together I raise them up until they are in parallel with my abdominals and then I lower them again to about 6 inches off the floor and then repeat the process 20 times. This exercise helps to strengthen the abdominal muscles so this will improve my upper body strength which is one of main aims
* Station 7: Pull-ups- You have to hang from a bar with straight arms and then pull yourself up so that the bottom of your chin is touching the bar that you are using to lift yourself up with. Once you have done this one pull-up will have been completed. I will grip the bar with my palms facing towards me and next to each other. This exercise will help improve my upper body strength. Similarly to the press-ups I will also increase the number of repetitions I do but by 5 every 2 weeks. For weeks 1 and 2 I will be doing 10 repetitions so by the last 2 weeks I shall be doing 20 repetitions
Station 8: Shuttle runs- I will mark out a course in my garden with 4 lines that I have to run to and over the 6 weeks I will be extending the distance between these lines. In the first 2 weeks I will have the distance between the lines at 5 metres, for weeks 3-4 I will extend distance to 7 metres and for the last 2 weeks I will make the lines 10 metres apart. This exercise will help strengthen and help the fitness of my quadriceps, calf muscles and hamstrings. As well as improving the strength in my legs it will help to improve the fitness in my body overall so will help me to improve my score on the bleep test, even though an improvement on my cardiovascular endurance wasn’t one of my main aims, I stated that It would be a bonus if it improved along with the other aspects of fitness as I will be able to run for longer round the football pitch without feeling tired.
Safety factors to be taken into consideration Warm up- Before I start any exercises in my circuit training session I will warm up and do some stretches. Warm up is very important because it prepares the body for physical activity, makes the muscles more supple to prevent injury, increases the blood flow to the muscles and increases arousal levels to the activity. Warm up will improve your performance levels in a game and doing drills before a match for example practicing passing skills before a football match also helps. Warming up can address the physiological and mental side, which helps you to start thinking and focusing about the game ahead. Vigorous warm up for a long period of time can increase muscle temperature and increase blood and oxygen supply to the muscles.
For my warm up I will begin with a five minute jog to increase my heart rate and flow of blood. Once I have done this I will do some stretches and flexibility exercises to warm up all the main muscle groups such as the quadriceps which I can warm up by doing squat thrusts and doing arm circles and sideways bends to warm up the muscles in the upper body and back. To finish off I will do some dynamic stretching which will involve a few SAQ exercises and for this I will be doing skipping and lunges.
Warm Down- Warming down is just as important as warming up because if you warm down then you will reduce the feeling of soreness after a demanding training session or game so your recovery time will improve and also improve your flexibility because of certain exercises and stretches that you will do when warming down. Warming down helps the body to remove waste products like lactic acid which remains in the muscles for longer once the pumping action of muscles contracting stops. This is known as blood pooling and commonly occurs in the legs. Stretching out the muscles with gentle exercise helps the body return to its normal state. Warming down is an ideal time to stretch the muscles safely and more effectively because the blood flow to the muscles is still quite high.
For my warm down I will start with a light jog for around 5 minutes and follow this with some gentle stretches. Recovery- Recovery is a period of time which follows after a session of training or exercise during which the body is returning to its normal state for example returning to its normal resting pulse rate. Recovery time varies depending on how fit a person is. A fit person will be able to recover quicker than someone who is unfit.