I have achieved my short-term goal, which I am pleased with. Also I can clearly see by video analysis that my dive is more fluent and streamlined than from before. I have a fast dolphin kick under water, which enhances my performance. It shows that I react quicker than before this is due to excessive practise. Recording success of action plan: Evaluation I felt that my eight-week training programme was a success, I completed everything I planned for each week, and at the end I could clearly feel and see my improvements.
My backstroke technique was the most important part of my programme, as I think this played the biggest part in reaching my long-term goal. I was pleased to see by video footage that my backstroke leg efficiency had developed greatly, as this was by far the weakest part of my stroke. I was satisfied with my sprint running because I knocked off 0. 2second after retaking the 30metre sprint test, it went from 4. 8 to 4. 6. I split my training programme between dry and in the pool, this allowed me to do a varied amount of exercises that I may not be able to achieve in the pool.
It is also good for your body to do different activates so you don’t get bored. I found that videoing myself before and after my programme was a good idea, because this allowed me to actually see the improvements I had made. I could see my backstroke technique was more fluent and my hips were higher in the water, and the consistent kick made the stroke look flowing. My coach watching my performance helped me to analysis my technique, as he provided necessary feedback, which I needed to improve upon.
In my opinion I choose good achievable goals, which required me to work hard, but weren’t impossible. Developing my reaction time helped me to improve my overall sprints starts, when swimming short races i. e. 50m. Although this was a good benefit it wouldn’t make a big difference speeding up my longer race times, i. e. 200m, 400m. If I repeated my programme I would carry it out over a longer period of time. I would do this by adding an additional four weeks to my programme, this would allow for a greater improvement in my weaknesses and achieving harder goals that I would set myself.
Review of action plan Overall my action plan was very effective, I felt that I worked hard during my programme. It showed improvements because I managed to complete my short and medium term goal and part of my long-term goal. This is because I didn’t manage to reduce my 100m-backstroke swim time down enough to the time I wanted to achieve. This was a hard goal to achieve and after I thought it was possibly too hard to reach in such a short period of time, and that wouldn’t be able to push my body that far.
Also I think that because I didn’t have long enough time to achieve it, I could have repeated it I for an additional 4 weeks to my programme, for further improvements. But otherwise because backstroke is my worse stroke, unless I trained more on this I don’t think I will improve massively on it. I would rather concentrate on strokes that I can achieve higher standards in because I am more natural at them and wouldn’t have to do so many drills to improve the stroke.