Sunday: On this day I will play football for my local team St Margaret’s Football Club, this is in a local league and matches last for 90 minutes. I play in midfield and play an active role in the team. This match could be used as an indirect training session and will certainly contribute to an improvement in my speed and stamina. I will spend the time before and after the game resting my body. Monday: Monday will be mainly a recovery day on my programme however I will carry out the two small tests at some point of the day.
I may well carry these out at school, as they wont take very long I may do them at lunchtime. I will have to make sure that I make a record of the results to measure my results. Apart from the tests the rest of the day will be rest. Tuesday: On Tuesday I will do my continuous training session. This session will obviously start with a warm up (explained further later in plan). The session will then consist of me working at 70% of my maximum heart rate (MHR). This is easy to calculate all we have to do is take our age away from 220 so my MHR is 205.
This means that I will need to be working at a heart rate of 144. For this continuous session I will be running for a certain length of time, which will gradually develop as the programme goes on. For the first week I will run for 30 minutes and measure the distance I run. For every week after that I will run for an extra 5 minutes so by the end of the programme I will be running for 55 minutes. To check that I am training at the right level half way through the run I will stop and record my heart rate to check it is about 144.
Once I have finished my run I will conduct a cool down. I will run on roads in my local village around a course that has been pre-decided. It is vital that I put my full effort in to every training session or my fitness will not improve. As well as recording the distance I have run I will also record the weather conditions as that could have an effect on how far I run. Wednesday: This day I will play my weekly game of squash I will play for between one or two hours and this will improve my fitness a lot as it is very hard work.
It will certainly help my speed, as I will have to move around the court quickly as I play against a very good player. The rest of the day will be spent recovering. Thursday: This will be another recovery day, apart from my games lesson at school I will do no exercise in the evening, I feel without this total rest I could be at total risk of burnout. This will also be used as a reserve day so if I can’t carry out a session one day for some reason I will use this day to do it so that I don’t miss out. However this will generally be used as a recovery day.
Friday: On this day I will do a training session to improve my speed. There are no clear ways to improve my speed so I will do a mixed session. It will obviously start with a warm up. Then following this I will do some exercises on my legs including weights I will lift weights with my legs. I will do sets of these for 20 minutes. After I have done this I will do very short shuttle runs of 30 metres. I will do one shuttle then rest for one minute then do another then rest. I will do 15 of these in all. Once I have done this I will carry out my cool down. This session is designed to help improve my speed.
If I feel it can be modified during the programme then I will do this and make a note of what I have done. I must stretch all of these for between 7-10 seconds and make sure if needed I do for both left hand side and right hand side. When I have completed my stretching I will then go for another jog for 5 minutes this time maybe upping the speed a little. When this is done I will then start the training session. Cool Down I will always finish my training session with a period of lighter exercise. This is a cool down (or warm down). I should not go directly from hard exercise to rest.
Light exercise shortens the recovery time necessary by helping to remove carbon dioxide, lactic acid and other waste products, which have built up in our bodies. It also ensures that our blood continues to circulate well and does not pool in the skeletal muscles. Pooling can cause a rapid lowering in blood pressure and make us feel light-headed or dizzy. My cool down will be not far off identical to my warm-up except I will start with a 5 minute run then stretch then finish with a 3 minute run this is obviously so there is a de-progression in what my body is doing.