Overall again I feel the session went well again and the different skill sections will help me in the long run to improve when it comes to playing on the pitch. I think when it comes to next session I might try to do just fitness aspects though because I defiantly wish to improve this area. An option may be to do one session a week on fitness and another on football skills related training this will therefore make sure I get a good overall fitness that will benefit me on the pitch.
The next session I will do a longer training session because I can feel myself getting fitter because I’m coping with the pressure much easier so I will change the time to a minute on each station and do two circuits of this. This overload will be a good thing when it comes to playing on the pitch because I should have more confidence in my football skills to take players on and have more of a good fitness to work 100% to the final whistle.
This session I have decided to focus on my fitness levels without the use of a football. This is to make sure I will improve my fitness and not just concentrate on my skills because they are both very important to me. I made sure I did my full warm up this time as I knew I was going to be increasing the intensity from the last session and so I knew it was very important to avoid any injuries and to get my mind mentally focused to the task.
I then ensured that I had everything set up properly and I timed myself on each station to make sure that I was doing each station to my full potential. I set up different stations to help with my cardio vascular fitness such as step ups, shuttle runs, skipping and squat thrust. As well as this I set up exercises like sit ups and press ups to improve my body composition. I worked well for the whole session and made sure I did the full time that I had allocated myself to do in the previous evaluation. I did two circuits and made sure I did 1 minute on each station, taking appropriate rests when needed.
Evaluation: This week I felt I performed very well and trained to the best of my ability. I knew that it was going to be a harder intensity level of performance so I didn’t go mad on the stations but I went round at a pace that was suitable for my ability and that wouldn’t make me feel fatigued half way through. The only problem with this is that I had nothing to aim for so for next week I’m going to record the number of reps I do on each station and then for the session I will compare them and it will give me a goal to try to beat.
I will keep the same intensity for the next circuit but don’t have as many breaks in between as I feel its beneficial to continue for the whole session, so I will only allow myself a break after the first circuit. This week I felt I had a very good training session and worked for the full allocated time at a good level of fitness. I recorded my results so I could compare my results for the first circuit with the second circuit.
I found that although on the second circuit I didn’t have as much energy I was still able to do better on the second circuit because I pushed myself to the max to improve and to meet my goal of doing better- this is a good method for training, because if your just training at any pace then you could feel like there is no need to train hard and so wont improve in anyway.
I made sure that I was fully warmed up for this and that I stretched all the muscles because I didn’t want to push myself harder and injure myself in the process so this was very important thing to do. After the session I also made sure I did a full cool down by doing jogging, side steps, bounding etc at slower rates to reduce my heart rate and get my body back to my usual resting rate. I found that I was well within my training zone this week and so the training would have done a lot of good.
Evaluation This training session went very well and I feel my fitness is getting better all the time so I now want to focus a bit more on my skill related fitness using the football in many different ways. I wont have a set time on each thing as I feel for this type of thing its best to do things as many times as needed in order to improve but I will say that I will do each drill at least 5 times to avoid myself from slacking. Session 7: This week I feel my training was really effective and I learnt a lot from it. I decided to work with a partner this week as I feel this is beneficial when doing different drills of football. We set up drills such as dribbling, passing, shooting, volleying, throw-ons, penalties, crossing and other such things.
I really enjoyed the session and glad we chose to work together because I feel we both got more out the session this well. I made sure I warmed up again this week following the full plan that in set up in my planning and then stretched all the relevant muscles and did the mobility exercises- this was to ensure I could train well and not cause any injuries. Overall I feel this training session was the best one ive done so well as it was most specific to football, I could see that I had progressed, I overloaded my training by working for a full hour with few breaks, there was no sign of any reversibility and I didn’t find it tedious at all so I was very pleased.
Evaluation I feel my shooting has improved a lot as I have more power on the ball and have better accuracy as I have become more confident with my footwork and this gives me the confidence when striking the ball. The dribbling is still an aspect that I feel I need to improve in by getting my coordination to a better standard. This is something I feel I will need to work on in the next few sessions. For the next session I will keep it skill related and work on different dribbling drills as well as keeping myself working on the different aspects of passing and shooting etc.
This week was another good session for me as I benefited from the training again as I would hope to. I set out on my usual warm up and did all the necessary stretches and mobility exercises. After this I then set out doing my training. I did a skill related circuit with different dribbling drills, shooting drills where I had to aim for different parts of the goal using ones to set up the area to shoot in. I then did different ways of shooting using the outside of my boot, learning to curling the ball, shooting in the corners with the side of your foot and volleying ensuring I was using both of my feet effectively.
This practise was very effective because I see myself as a forward player and so my job in the long run is to score goals and so I have to ensure I have a good technique when shooting otherwise I will never score. Another thing I focused on during the session was crossing and heading. I worked with my partner again, so I would cross the balls for her to head or volley and she would do the same for me, this was beneficial for both of us and so therefore hopefully helped us improve in both aspects.
Evaluation I made sure I worked on each piece of training for about 5-8mins this was to ensure I got the right idea about each skill and so I could practise it. I pushed myself hard as much as possible and felt I achieved a great amount within this session. I feel however for the next session I will combine both fitness aspects and skill related fitness together as I only have two session left of the programme and I wished to improve my overall level of fitness so they are both very important to improving what I set out to do. I will set myself the target of working on each station for 2 minutes for the next session and I will do the circuit twice. This will show me how much I’ve been improving my fitness over the weeks as I am overloading my body quite a lot.
This session went well again I felt as I pushed myself hard and I felt good for it. I made sure I did my warm up and cool down using the usual methods that I use and I went a long with the chosen amendments I chose last week by doing both skill related and health related fitness within my training. I found the training hard but satisfying to know that I kept to my chosen overload. I felt this week was the hardest week so far that I have done throughout my training but I can tell I am getting fitter each week because I can do more and I am getting less out of breath after doing my intense training.
I chose to do each station twice this week and I kept on each station for 2 minutes before having a 10-15 seconds rest before going on to the next station. The stations I chose consisted of agility This week I really enjoyed doing the training as I found it very specific to football in terms of the skills I did on the stations and the fitness aspects would also be seen on many football clubs training pitches. I progressed very much so from the last week in that I spent longer on the stations and that I combined the skills and fitness together. For my final session I think I will push myself even harder to see how capable I am however I wont go to over the top because I don’t want to risk injuries so I must ensure I do as full warm up and cool down. I will go on each station for 2 minutes again next week however I will do the circuit 3 times using the same circuit as I did this week- this should show how fit I am and how well I have come on from the previous weeks.
For the last week of my PEP I decided to push myself to the limits to see how much I was capable of. I had to ensure the warm up was effective and that it would stop me from getting any injuries because if this was to happen in the last session of training, it would be a big blow, as my body would suffer as I wouldn’t be able to carry on with any training after so all my hard work would suffer. So once I did my full warm up, with stretches and mobility exercises I went straight into my training ensuring all equipment was safely in place. I then did my skill related and fitness related tasks all 2 minutes each only having a 10 second rest until I went straight on to the next one. I did the circuit three times only allowing a 5 minute rest after each session then I was straight back into the session.
I was fully focused on the task in hand and my determination got me through as it was a tough session but I could see I was a fitter person and that the overload was a good thing to increase my level of fitness and make me a good overall performer in football. Overall I felt the session went as good as I could have hoped, I worked for the full time I allocated and although I was very tired by the end of the session I ensured I did my warm down to stop aching the next day because of any built up lactic acid that may be in my muscles, so I did my usual routine of doing a few jogging exercises and stretches etc.