Greatest amount of force an athlete can exert at one time. Can be weight training, push ups, pull ups, exercises that build your muscle power up. Is normally measured by the amount of weight the muscles can lift at once, or applying a force against a resistance. When playing football you would need to be strong to challenge the ball and have hard shots because if you are weak for example Walcott who is one of the fastest footballers in the Premiership is fast but is out muscled some of the time so you should be strong and fast in football.
Muscular Endurance: The ability to perform many repetitions against a given resistance for a given amount of time. This can be jogging push ups pull ups etc… Anything that can build the amount of reps you can do or how long it takes for your body to get tired while exercising. We need muscular endurance to be able to play the full 90 minutes at an average pace without getting tired or weak in the middle of the game.
CardioVascular Endurance: Ability to increase cardiac output, increase stroke volume, and reduce heart rate at resting pulse and during exercise using 60 80% of maximal heart rate. This is how long your body can last in e.g. jogging and you need a good cardiovascular endurance for your sport e.g. for football you need it to last the full 90 minute match. Requires the heart and blood vessels to supply the working muscles with oxygen for long periods of time.
This is the most important part of football as if you can’t last a football matches length then you would just sit down half way through. Flexibility: Ability to move a body joint through its normal full range of motion. Is an important part of fitness that we need to keep into our old age. Babies have a natural suppleness and can suck their toes (not that as a teenager you would probably want to do this still), we lose flexibility as we grow older. We should always remember to warm up before competition to stretch our muscles and tendons. If you want to do fancy tricks you may need to be flexible to do say for example a bicycle kick and also in corners this is important because if you want to jump for the ball your legs need to be flexible to spring upwards for a header.
Body Composition: This can be percentages of muscle, fat, bone and other tissue that make up the body. Reduce calories of intake to lose weight or increase to gain weight. This is also a vital factor in football because if you are too fat you cannot run and if your too skinny a footballer may be fast but have no power so it is good to be muscular but not too much as this will slow you down so its good to be a Mesomorph/Ectomorph. Skill Related Fitness: Agility: Ability to start, stop, and move the body quickly in different directions. How quick you can change direction from one side to another. Christiano Ronaldo is a good example of agility, he moves from side to side quickly doing step over, passing the ball and he is one of the top players so agility is needed to be a footballer.
Balance: There are many types of balances e.g. static balance dynamic balance. The ability to keep the body in a flexed position while not moving. Is the ability to keep upright while you are standing still or moving. We naturally think of gymnasts balancing on their hands or on a beam, but we all have to balance when we are standing or riding a bike. In football, when we are dribbling a ball, an opponent may shoulder charge us. We need to shift our body weight to prevent us falling over. We have all tripped up; and to stop ourselves falling over we have to move our centre of gravity (centre of mass), quickly.
Co-ordination: Ability to use several different body parts at the same time to produce complex movement e.g. Michael Jackson dancing. You body has to co ordinate on the pitch in order to get somewhere for example when your volleying the ball your brain tells you the right time to shoot, your hands go up then down as you charge power in the leg and then you shoot. Reaction Time: Is the ability to keep upright while you are standing still or moving.
We naturally think of gymnasts balancing on their hands or on a beam, but we all have to balance when we are standing or riding a bike. In football, when we are dribbling a ball, an opponent may shoulder charge us. We need to shift our body weight to prevent us falling over. We have all tripped up; and to stop ourselves falling over we have to move our centre of gravity (centre of mass), quickly. Goalkeepers need this especially to save the ball and get back up for the rebound. They train this every week in training in order to be good at it.
Speed:
The ability to cover a distance or perform a movement over a short period of time, E.g. football dribbling, relay race, martial artist fighting at speed and more. Everyone In football needs to be fast even the referee but mainly the striker and the defender as the striker has to run onto the ball dribble it fast and whereas the defender has to catch him up but if the striker gets their first he will use speed strength to get power into their shots. Power: In simple terms this is “strength x speed” or doing strength movements quickly. A shot putter uses power when moving a shot from his/her neck. A high jumper needs power in his/her legs to lift their body, vertically, over the bar. A weight lifter powers the bar up over his head.
Power is not that important to footballers but maybe to Liverpool as their team always shoot from distance to score goals and also to barge players off the ball easier so you get a chance at goal.I just finished the first week of training and I am feeling quite tired after the training, even though it is tiring I think it is good because you can keep fit. The Stations in training I found hardest was Shuttle run and push ups because there was not enough time to do a lot so you had to push yourself to the limit if you wanted a good result. In the circuit training we have 45 seconds but when we set our target in the beginning we had 1min so if we get close to our score in 45 seconds then we might be able to beat it after 6 weeks.
Week 1 Gym
This was the first week of gym for our pep and it was quite difficult to choose what I wanted to do because I wanted to use all machines but as you can see my above choices. I think this week was hardest because you had to have a go on the heavier and lighter weights trying to figure out what is suitable for you and you do this in many different stations. I used both the bicycle and treadmill for 10min each this week as others were using the machines as well. I used free weights first doing the bicep curls and then tricep extension sideways and also chess press and some tricep dips (put Weight on neck and extend upwards). All with 10 reps. the shoulder press is the hardest out of all machines so I went for low weights of 25 but I did 12 reps of this. Leg extension was next and I felt this was easy as my legs are stronger than my arms so I did 10 reps of 56kg. Last of all I did chess press 12 reps of 42 kg which is suitable for me.
WEEK 2
The second week of training was a bit harder than the first week of training because I was feeling tired even though in week1 we did Gym first and then moved onto circuit training. I tried hard and I think that I have improved in some of my activities such as bunny hop but I did drop in my Push ups and Shuttle run so I think I did well seeing that I was tired but need much more improvement overall to satisfy myself physically and mentally to prove to myself that I am fit. My target for next week is to improve in my shuttle run and bench press also on my push ups. As for my heart level, it has increase by 6 beats which means I have been working hard today and I would like to keep it roughly at this level even when I am working harder so that my heart has a higher stroke volume.
Week 2 Gym
This week I felt tired as we did the circuit training first and then moved to the gym where I used the treadmill for 15 minutes and the bike for 5 minutes also in a low level than usual a 5 then 8 and last two minutes was at a level 10. I used 7.5Kg to do some bicep curls and then did a few Bicep Bends and moved onto the Chess Press as shoulder press was in use and I did 1 set of 49Kg (1 set is equal to 12 reps) and also two sets of 35kg. After this I did the Leg Extension which felt quite easy even though it was the heaviest out of all the weights I did the same 56Kg, 3 sets of 10 reps so next week I hope to improve on this by adding more weights or even do more reps. Last of all the did the Shoulder Press same as last week 25Kg, 3 sets of 10 reps and after all that I felt quite tired but good. Finished off by playing football after school Watford training.
WEEK 3
Today I was particularly tired because I did not get enough sleep and I am disappointed because I didn’t achieve my target which was to get an upgrade on all my scores. Even though I may have increased in some stations by trying harder I have decreased in others for example from week 2 I did more push ups and bunny hops but I did less sit ups and ladders which is a real disappointment for me personally. I think this week was steady as every station matched each other out but my aim for next week is to get 10% higher in my overall achievement for next week and I aim to do this by having more energy and glucose in the body then these past couple of weeks. My heart rate is gone better from the first week I started my pep as it goes down much quicker week by week to my resting heart rate. Sadly I did not do gym this week as it was last day of school before half term break.