I will be doing the extended work out again jus like in the previous session. After thoughts on session The session went well, with no problems at all. Later in the evening I didn’t feel tense or any pain in my muscles, and I didn’t get cramp in the jogging/running exercises. I will not be doing another session because I feel confident that when I do the fitness tests, that I done at the start of my project again, I will verify this session’s progress.
Evaluation Overall I felt that my P.E.P. went well and to an extent was very successful. I found this useful as a sportsman because now I really know now how to train properly and effectively. This will help me a great deal in the future when training. Before I started my PEP I felt tired in the morning and didn’t really wake up until late morning. When I started to do my PEP in the morning I found it woke me up and made me feel better for most of the day. This is because with exercise endorphins are released by the nervous system, which causes the brain to become more active.
I have learned how to evaluate training sessions and my performances more accurately and this feedback helps me constantly keep on improving. Evaluating each session has made me more aware of different aspects of training. I think that now I have finished the 7 sessions I will try my best to keep the programme going. I doubt it will be to the same intensity and probably not as frequent since I have the whole summer before the season begins. I think carrying on is important because of the reversibility training principle. This would mean that if I stopped the training in a few weeks all the hard work that I have put in would be for nothing since my fitness levels, that did increase, will drop back to the original levels. Although I have made good progress, I still feel I would need to be a lot fitter to try to reach the standard of play I once was at my peak a few seasons ago.
I have not attempted to train on all of the fitness tests because not all of the tests were relevant to the aims of my P.E.P. So I only did the tests that measured my speed (along with acceleration), power and endurance. It would be pointless carrying out tests to measure my reaction time, balance or co-ordination because these were not aspects of fitness that I aimed to improve while doing my P.E.P. Also these are more genetic aspects of fitness, skills you are born with and can hardly be changed by training.
The sit and reach test should show an improvement because I have been stretching before and after each session. The test only measures the leg and lower back flexibility but does show a substantial increase. In the vertical jump I feel I have a larger improvement in my leg power but the test doesn’t show this. Technique plays a big part in the vertical jump and so it may mean that I have bad technique. The pull-up and sit-up tests show very little increase because of how short the programme was. A 7-session programme cannot have large improvements that would show up in these sorts of tests.
The bleep test measures the VO2max, which is the maximum volume of oxygen that can be consumed and used by the body per unit of time. I was expecting a very small change if any at all. But I was impressed with my improvement considering the higher-level you are at the harder it is to improve on. Unfortunately my retest results do not show much improvement, but to an extent I was expecting this since my P.E.P was only 7 training sessions long. On the other hand a substantial improvement would have been understandable since my current fitness levels are far below my peak. Although the difference in improvement hasn’t been much I do generally feel a lot better about myself and more confident when I am playing in any sport now. I am currently playing football and basketball games on a regular basis and I feel I can go into the match with more than I had before in terms of confidence and energy.