I am a 15-year-old male and I am going to devise a training programme for myself to do over the next 6 weeks. I play a lot of football but also enjoy many other sports including cricket, squash and athletics all of which along with football I participate in regularly. The main reason I want to get fitter is because I feel my performance at the end of a game is not as high as it could be because my body is tired and is not performing at its peak level for a long enough period. This also has a major affect on my performance because I can’t carry out skills as quickly or as well towards the end of a game to the level that I know I can.
This then gets me frustrated and can have a negative effect on not only me but also the rest of the team. I feel that if I design a training program to improve my fitness my performance will be greatly enhanced and will not only help myself but other people as well. I am quite lucky in the fact that I have no real health problems and have suffered no major injuries in my sporting life. However I can be prone to pulled or strained muscles after strenuous exercise so I will have to make sure that I have an appropriate cool down that will stop this from happening on my training programme.
Before designing my programme I need to think of my likes and dislikes towards training. I don’t mind running long distances outside and I am also quite content to run on my own as I feel I have enough personal will to push myself as hard as possible, however at the same time I am also happy running with another person providing they have the same attitude as me and are at the same standard. One thing I don’t like is exercise where I feel I can’t push myself enough this has sometimes happened in some circuits because what we are doing does not feel as if it is pushing me to my full ability.
This means that when I am designing a programme I will have to make sure that all the activities will push me to my limit. Another thing I must consider is the facilities that I could use apart from the local sports centre there are not many facilities available to me but I do have a lot of peaceful running areas near my home so I may be able to make good use of those. My last consideration will be to make sure that my fitness plan fits around the sport I do at the moment as I have to make sure that I am not doing too much and risking burnout.
I currently play football on Sunday and squash on Wednesday; I also do school fitness activities on Thursday I must consider all these things when I am planning my training programme. What Needs Improving After writing my introduction the main thing I believe I need to improve on is my stamina, however to avoid tedium and boredom in my training I will also try and improve my speed as I feel I am very good over 100m but there is room for improvement over shorter distances as these are vital in all the sports I participate in.
I will base my programme on trying to improve my fitness for football however I feel that this will improve my whole general fitness, which can overlap into the other sports I play. I will now look at the two areas in closer detail to gain as much information as I possibly can for my training programme. Stamina This is also known as aerobic capacity or cardio-respiratory endurance. It is the ability of our heart and lung systems to cope with activity over a long period of time. We need to keep our active muscles supplied with energy and to get rid of waste products during prolonged periods of strenuous activity.
This depends on the efficiency of our heart, lungs and blood vessels. The better our aerobic capacity the better we can keep going for long periods of time when playing sports such as football, rugby, squash and swimming. Our maximum aerobic capacity is called our VO2 max. It is the maximum amount of oxygen that can be transported to, and used by, our working muscles during exercise. If we have a high VO2 max we can use much more oxygen than other people. We can work our body at a higher rate for long periods and will suffer less fatigue than others with a lower VO2 max.
As you can see if I can improve my stamina it will mean that I will be able to supply my muscles with oxygen for longer periods of time using aerobic respiration methods. This should significantly improve my performance in a match and it will help me perform better in later stages of a game and hopefully with this extra stamina I may have an advantage over the opposition. Improving our stamina We can improve our stamina by regularly taking part in continuous exercise involving our whole body. Our heart rate must be kept between 70-85% of our maximal heart rate so that our aerobic capacity will improve.
We should at first exercise for a minimum of 12 minutes but as we become fitter we can make our sessions last anything up to 40 minutes. There are two ways in which we cant improve our stamina and they are continuous training and interval training I will look at both of these ways and see which one is most suitable for my programme. Speed Speed is the ability to move all or part of the body quickly. Speed is important in sports, which require a great deal of effort over a short period of time like in football and squash, in which speed is absolutely vital.
It is especially vital in football because often a sudden change of speed can get you away from the opposition to create yourself a goal scoring opportunity. If I can improve my speed over short distances and combine it with my longer distance sprinting speed then I feel it will add another dimension to my attacking and defensive play. This will also give me more opportunities to display my skills because I will be able to receive the ball more as I could find space in a lot shorter amount of time.