I felt like I was starting Football for the first time this week but it was good to go over old ground and gain extra confidence. I feel I can now build upon my performance and improve in general. It is important to progress your training if you were to continue with training because after six weeks you would have improved. You must increase either the intensity of the training, the frequency of the training or the length of training sessions to keep pushing the body to its limits. Final Evaluation This 6-week training plan has been quite tough to carry out.
I found it hard to go through with it all but found the determination to do it because I want to get better at the sport and be a better player. None of the weeks we were affected by rain or injury which was lucky. I felt more awake every day during the plan because I think that doing all this exercise actually works and does keep you healthy. What I must not do now is stop working because if I do then I will go into the stage called reversibility, where your fitness level drops. I want to keep up this level of fitness for the football season and work hard in training.
I have always been an athletic person but I feel I have taken it to a new level and shall hopefully keep it there. In general my training programme was successful because it tested each area and principle of fitness that I wanted it to. I think that, my training programme not only tested my fitness and my football skills, it also improved them. The circuit training was very successful. By the end of the week, I had improved my speed as I did it faster the second time. Improving my speed was an encouraging result of the training programme because, speed is an important factor for playing football.
It also improved my agility and the endurance of my quadriceps and hamstrings. The sit-up exercise was very tiring, after each time I performed this exercise I could feel my abdominal muscles stretching and becoming stronger. I improved throughout the six weeks because as my results show I could do more sit-ups at the end of the training programme than in the beginning of the training programme. But as a whole I improved the strength and endurance of my abdominal muscles. Chipping balls into hoops, I found this exercise fairly uncomplicated.
Although my accuracy and chipping ability are somewhat good, they still improved as a whole. The shooting exercise tested my shooting and accuracy ability. This was one of the easier stations as shooting isn’t a very backbreaking work out, although I did improve in the six-week period. I could pinpoint a spot between the cones and then usually get it there. This improved my accuracy. The burpees’ exercise was the exercise that I found quite difficult, during the training programme, as it was very tiring and challenging.
Overall, this did improve my agility, cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance and strength of the quadriceps and hamstrings. The dribbling exercise was a fairly easy exercise. I have improved on my speed and ball control. I noticed that I could do dribbling faster at the end of the training programme than at the beginning. I also noticed that I was not as tired as I was before. The kick-ups exercise, I am fairly good at kick-ups already but by the end of the program I was able to keep the ball under control at a lower height than what I started with.
The passing exercise, this exercise tested my right and left foot, my accuracy and my speed, my left foot has improved a lot by doing this exercise, my right foot has slightly improved. The westend/Interval training run was very tiring. It greatly improved my muscular endurance, speed and agility. This was a good way to improve. I also started to walk to school. The Bleep Test is an exercise from hell. It is very grueling and needs a lot of muscular endurance, speed, agility and aerobic capacity. I do not find the Harvard Step Test, difficult and I think that my results show that I was above average.
I completed two Harvard Step Tests during the training programme. The Harvard Step Test measures my aerobic capacity and my recovery rate and my results show that my fitness index increased during the period of training. This also proves that the training programme helped my pulse and recovery rate which would enhance all of the rest of the exercises. I found the pull ups very hard and I took a lot out of me the more I did. Press-ups are easy but I still managed to do more and more as the weeks went by.
The standing broad jump and the standing vertical jump were very easy and my results show that my muscular strength in my legs was above average. The free kick, penalties, headers and volleys exercise tested my accuracy at being able to pinpoint a spot to shoot at. My accuracy is good and I found that I was able to be even more accurate in my shooting and heading. The sit-and-reach test tested my flexibility and my results show that I was above average. The Illinois agility run was testing. I learned to speed my way through it, and learned that every second counted.
It measured my agility and speed. I was a bit out of breath at the end of the run. The football assault course was just a way to reduce tedium but also to see if I could combine all of my football skills together. The key to the course was speed but also to fulfill each section as best as possible. I found the training programme to be very intense and tiring, but very effective as my training programme tested all the areas I wanted it to. I was very tired though after completing each week of the program, my muscles were aching and my heart and breathing rate had increased drastically.
The positive aspect was that I recovered quicker as I went on in the training programme. If I were to perform the training programme again I would start by making the exercise time slightly less at the beginning of the program so I could get use to doing the exercises gradually. This would also be overloading because the exercises would get harder. Also so would join a gym to make use of better equipment. If I was given another chance to perform he training programme again, I would have included more tests and exercises such as wall-sits, combination tests, dynamometer and shoulder lift test.
I would also have compared my skin fold measurement to see if it changed during the training programme. I would expect that it would not change because it would take some time for the fat to reduce. I would also compare the change in my pulse rate during the training programme. Although I had improved during the six-week period I had only improved slightly, so if I were repeating this programme I would make it last 12 weeks so improvements could be seen more easily. Once the training programme becomes too easy I would have to make it harder (overload) to affect reversibility.
If the training programme is not made harder the body will stop improving in the areas of muscular endurance and anaerobic respiration. The body must train regularly to prevent reversibility. Reversibility is when the affects of training decrease and the benefits are lost. I liked doing this plan and found it was worth it. I didn’t really encounter any problems and found it a demanding but I enjoyed it a lot too, the only regrets I have is looking back on it I could of pushed myself a little more.