To balance up my circuit I have done some upper body exercises. This will increase my upper body strength. I will use the treadmill to work on my aerobic fitness and these involved using my leg muscles to run on the treadmill, also the heart is a (cardiac) muscle that is involved during the treadmill as the heart pumps blood around the body and to muscles. The Blood transports oxygen to the muscles as well, which gives the muscles more energy.
Impact on skill & performance Specific training methods are very good to improve certain skills, which could also improve your performance on the whole. For example the Illinois agility run improves agility, which is good in performing for football, as it will help me when I am dribbling with the ball to lose a defender by changing direction at speed. So training methods for skill can improve on the performance itself by making me a more complete player. Individual skill can be trained to improve on my game as a whole, as I have trained different aspects of my game, which means I will have more skills.
I have already planned my circuit, and the reason that my circuit will help my performance is because I have designed specific to the areas of my game that needs to be improved. I feel that in concentrating on exercises specific to helping my lower body strength and cardio vascular system, it would make a huge impact upon my performances. In concentrating upon these areas I am looking to improve upon my weaknesses and I feel that my circuit is helping me in my performances. I am improving upon various skills in doing this PEP; working on my cardiovascular system has improved skills such as dribbling, this is as when I am now running with the ball I do not get tired as quickly as I used to, even while running greater distances.
Another example of these skills being applied into my game is when I am running around the field during off the ball situations, whether this is to mark a player or making forward runs.Football is played from the end of August till May. We are currently in mid season and at the moment I do not play for a team but I do play it everyday with my friends. Football isn’t really played in the summer, as it is too hot to play as there is a lot of energy required to run around and it can be exhausting. Also summer is a time to get a little break and keep on schedule with a training programme to stay fit and healthy for the season ahead so that you are not rusty.
Reversibility
If you train for a long time and then lower the intensity or stop training your performance and fitness starts to deteriorate. This is, as the body will have already adapted to the amount of exercise that it has been given and has been used to it. Therefore the body has got fitter and reliant on the exercise and when it doesn’t receive the exercise that it used to your fitness will drop. For me, I train quite regularly after my programme and during the summer I don’t play too much football so if I train I can still keep quite fit. If I stop training and playing football then my fitness level will drop immensely and I won’t be match fit for the new season, when I will join a team.
Ongoing evaluation Workload intensities/recovery
I have quite an intense workload as I am going to have to work very hard for eight sessions I will be working on a lot of machines as well as working with weights. My circuit will consist of ten stations throughout eight sessions of which the exercises will be varied throughout the course. I will be taking part in my circuit on a Tuesday and Friday this is good news for me as it gives my body tissues sufficient time to repair and recover from the workout. This is good because I am less likely to get injured if I have time to recover from my work out. It is very important have some recovery time especially after using weights as this requires a lot of energy depending on how much you will be carrying.
When doing weights it works the muscles and they can get quite sore and can cause discomfort but the recovery time is good as after the body tissue repairs themselves your muscles can increase through more training and adapting to the workload. My first session wasn’t too intense for me, I felt it was quite easy as I started off with small weights but as the sessions went on I increased them. In the second session I increased the bench press from 25 kg’s to 30 kg’s and coped quite well.
But my recovery time was vital for this change as I had a couple of days to recover from this before I adapted to the weight increase and changed the weights for the session after that. The last three sessions were the hardest sessions as they were the most intense. But the weekend recovery time helped me to prepare my body for the last three workout sessions. For the last three sessions I increased the intensity of the workload, which made it all the more harder. I made it harder by increasing the weights and the time on machines such as the treadmill and rowing machine. I feel that the recovery time prior to this really helped me to finish the circuit and increase my fitness level.
Training method/exercise suitability My training methods I think were very good as they were all suitable football, which is what I am training for. The aspects of my game that I was training for were mainly lower body strength and aerobic fitness. I have chosen methods that train these aspects of my game and also chose the bench press to also increase my arm strength. The reason why I chose the treadmill was because I wanted to increase my aerobic fitness and this is what the treadmill does, and I have got the treadmill in each session at least two or three times this was my training method to increase my aerobic fitness. I chose the Leg extensors, the leg curls to improve and to strengthen my leg muscles, this is a good training method as I am lifting weights with my legs doing 2X25 reps. This is a suitable method as it trains the legs to be stronger which is what I am aiming to achieve and what has been achieved after using this equipment quite frequently throughout the sessions.
Affect of training on their performance The effect of training was quite quick for me as I could feel a difference after only a couple of sessions. I play football at lunch every day and during my performance I could feel that stamina/endurance was better and I felt a lot more energetic. During my performances I felt that I didn’t get as tired as I used to this could also be due to the fact that I started to eat more healthily prior to starting the programme. I couldn’t really tell whether or not my leg strength had increased as I didn’t have any clear indication or test to prove if it had increased but I’m sure that if I carry on training of my own will there will be definite improvement. I think it is important to improve on this so that I can make good strong tackles and to shoot the ball, which isn’t really a weak point in my game it’ s just a part of my game that I want to improve a little to make me a better player overall.
Summative Evaluation Effectiveness of PEP – fitness aims The PEP was very effective in making me a fitter footballer as I have improved my aerobic fitness immensely. In running for a long amount of time for instance in a football match my fitness has improved. Training in the gym using machines such as the treadmill and rowing machine did this. In training for this I have improved by slow twitch muscle fibres, which is great as I am now almost as confident at sprinting as I am with running for longer.
Effectiveness of PEP – skill aims In taking part in training I have increased my skill related aims, by using the treadmill I improved my balance by maintaining to stay on my feet and not fall while running to the speed of the treadmill, even though this isn’t what the machine is used for it did benefit me for this. I also took part in the Illinois agility run prior to my PEP but didn’t fair to well and performed quite poorly but I think that I can do much better than I did.
Evaluation of testing methods My testing methods were quite good as I took tests before the PEP and then had a set of results for each session, which I could compare or just relate it to. After each session I recorded how I felt and what I could do for next session. At the beginning of each session I had my session plan with me so that I knew what to do and when to do it. My pre PEP tests could be used to see how I faired in the PEP as I took part in the skin fold test I could see if there has been any change in the tests and if so it may show the PEP really was effective. My testing methods showed how fit I was before the PEP and I have carried out post PEP tests, which you can see on the next page, which shows that I have improved my general fitness and my aerobic capacity.