A Personal Exercise Programme is a training programme designed to meet specific individual needs. I have selected to make my PEP tennis specific and my aim is to improve aspects of my fitness that will make my game more successful. My aim is carry out a six week personal exercise programme, to improve my core stability, muscular endurance in my leg muscles, muscular strength in my wrists and forearms and anaerobic fitness in order to become a more effective tennis player.
The objective of this exercise is to plan and record the tennis and fitness training I will complete over a six week period. I plan to analyse the results to see how much of an improvement I will have made in my fitness and tennis performance. This will enable me to decide what I need to do to improve my tennis and fitness in the future. GCSE PE – PEP Aspects of Fitness The aspects of my fitness I have selected to focus on are; my core stability, muscular endurance in my leg muscles, muscular strength in my wrists and forearms
and anaerobic fitness. Core stability enables you to maintain a solid foundation and transfer energy from the centre of the body out to the limbs – improving my core stability will mean that I will be able to improve the power level of my tennis strokes. I will be able to transfer energy more effectively whilst remaining balanced in a dynamic situation during a point. Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle, or group of muscles to sustain repeated contractions for an extended period of time.
If I increase the muscular endurance in the muscle groups in my legs then I will be able to perform at maximum intensity during points for longer periods of time. Muscular strength is defined as the ability to use muscles to apply force to overcome resistance. By improving the static and dynamic muscular strength in my wrists and forearms I will be able to improve my racket head control and perform shots with improved technique. Anaerobic fitness is the ability of the body to work at high intensity for short periods of time.
Anaerobic fitness is very important in tennis as points consist of intense exercise followed by a 20 second rest period. Improving my anaerobic fitness will mean that my recovery rate will get better, enabling me to be more prepared for the next point. GCSE PE – PEP Methods of Training, Factors that Influence Training & Measuring Success Methods of Training There are many methods of training which can be used to improve core stability, muscular endurance, muscular strength and anaerobic fitness. Core stability can be improved by resistance and strength exercises.
Body weight exercises and abdominal strengthening exercises can also be used to improve core strength. Muscular endurance can be improved by performing exercises in a circuit fashion – working different groups of muscles in a particular sequence. The principle of specificity can be incorporated into circuit training as it is easy to see what stations will produce the greatest benefits in relation to what you are working on. Muscular strength can be improved by weight training. Lifting heavier weights with a low number of repetitions is thought to be the best way to improve muscular strength.
As tennis is a dynamic sport, I am going to include isotonic weight training in my program to ensure that overload is taking place when my muscle fibres are moving. Anaerobic fitness can be improved by interval training and circuit training. Interval and circuit training are used because they consist of very strenuous bursts of exercise followed by recovery periods. This means that the anaerobic threshold rises and lactic acid tolerance improves. Influential Factors of Training There are many factors that can influence training: age, gender, illness and injury, diet and substance misuse can all have an effect on performance.
Age can affect performance as you do not reach your peak until you are in your twenties. Before you reach your peak, skills GCSE PE – PEP develop through experience – once you reach your thirties fitness levels begin to naturally decline. Gender also makes a difference to training. Females tend be weaker than males in aspects such as muscular strength, cardiovascular endurance, speed and power because of the bodies structure. However, females tend to be more flexible than males. They also have a greater percentage of body fat. Eating a balanced diet is a very important factor in staying healthy.
To perform at optimum level, you must make sure you meet the energy requirements of your sport. This is why some athletes eat special diets – some alter the proportions and types of foods they eat to make sure they achieve the maximum benefits from their training. Substance misuse can be a major influential factor on training. Smoking inhibits performance as it decreases the body’s oxygen carrying capacity. It also increases heart rate and blood pressure and can cause diseases such as cancer and emphysema. Alcohol also decreases performance levels as it reduces muscle glycogen levels.
It leads to kidney and liver damage and can cause lack of motivation. If you become injured during training then the principle of reversibility occurs. This means that over time the effects of exercise such as will reverse. For example, hypertrophy would reverse and become atrophy. This principle is based around the fact if you don’t use it you lose it! The same is true for illness however if you proceeded to train or compete when you were ill then you would be more likely to make errors and your level of concentration would be poor.
Measuring Success As my PEP is tennis specific, I plan to measure its success by reporting the improvements I am able to make to my tennis. For example, an improvement in racket head control could be seen as a direct result of improved muscular strength in my wrist and forearms. Also my effectiveness during point play should improve and my recovery rate should speed up – this will show that I have been working within my training zones as the aerobic benefit will be evident.