I have completed all my training session and after each one I filled out a session evaluation sheet. In total I have filled out 9 evaluation sheets, one for every session I completed. Whilst I was carryiing out the exercises I also made sure that I have and instructor close by to offer advice on technique. This stopped me from picking up any bad habits and enabled me to get the most out of training sessions. As planned I carried out a warm up before every session and this usually lasted 35 minutes. The sessions were always carried out in a safe environment and I made sure I always checked the collars on the weights.
Personal Exercise Program Evaluation Sheet Training session No 1. Type Of Training: Weight Training Date: Monday 5th November Session I shall warm up for 30 minutes before the session, which will include a 5 minute light jog to increase the pulse rate and warm the muscles up. After the jog I shall stretch for 25 minutes, ensuring that all parts of the body are stretched and held in position for 5 seconds. Each exercise will be carried out for twice. The session will consist of the following: Immediately after I carried out a cool down for 10 minutes.
I felt relatively tired after the session and extremely fatigued. This is probably due to it being my first time for a month since going down to the gym. Apart from this I believe that my session went reasonably well and that the weights were all set correctly apart from the squats, where I believe they were too light. These did not work my legs to the desired extent. The following day my upper body was very sore. Changes To The Future Sessions I have decided that the reason for my soreness the following day was due to not warming down for long enough.
I had not previously set a designated time limit for my warm down but now I believe that they should last about 20 minutes. This will allow long enough for a slow jog progressing to a walk and some light stretches, particularly in the upper body, around the arms. I have also decided to increase the weight of the squats to 15kgs. I do not want to increase the weight any further as yet, so it is not a risk to me. Personal Exercise Program Evaluation Sheet Training session No 2. Type Of Training: Weight Training Date: Monday 12th November
Session I shall warm up for 30 minutes before the session, which will include a 5 minute light jog to increase the pulse rate and warm the muscles up. After the jog I shall activily stretch for 25 minutes, ensuring that all parts of the body are stretched and held in position for 5 seconds. Each exercise will be carried out for twice. After the session I shall cool down for 20 minutes. I feel really good after today’s session. I worked hard but found that I was capable of doing all the exercises with good control and technique.
The cool down was sufficient with not soreness the following day apart from a little tightness in my quadriceps. This is probably due to the increase in weight for the squats. I stretched the following day and that relieved the tension in my upper leg muscles. Changes To The Future Sessions I believe that at this current time nothing need to be changed apart from the fact that I MUST ensure that my legs are properly cooled down after my session, but not changing the stretches I do to my upper body as they were adequate. Personal Exercise Program Evaluation Sheet
Training session No 3. Type Of Training: Weight Training Date: Monday 19th November Session I shall warm up for 30 minutes before the session, which will include a 5 minute light jog to increase the pulse rate and warm the muscles up. After the jog I shall activily stretch for 25 minutes, ensuring that all parts of the body are stretched and held in position for 5 seconds. Each exercise will be carried out for twice. After the session I shall cool down for 20 minutes. Remembering to stretch my legs fully when cooling down, and not hurring the stretches.
After completing my weight training sessions I now feel a lot more confident about my ability and myself. I thoroughly enjoy completing the sessions and believe I have benefited from it immensely. The session evaluation sheets were extremely helpful as a guide for the following sessions as to know what, if anything needed changing. It is also good to read through them and notice how I progressed. Also, I now know what stage I got to, therefore making it easier to start from were I had finished.
I believe that the way I had planned the sessions were both specific to the aims that I had set out to do and effective. The weights were all set at a weight that was sensible and safe whilst pushing me to a stage that I would feel the benefits from. The sessions all lasted approximately an hour and a half, which was about the intended time, I had set out for the planned sessions. My fitness retest results have shown that my 6 weeks of training resulted in progression. Firstly, my grip dynometer has improved, which measures strength.
This improved 7kg from before I had completed the 6-week schedule, obviously showing that I have benefited from the weight training. I am now ranked in the ‘good’ category for the national averages in this test whereas beforehand I was only average. When training on a club night I now feel a lot more confident with my throwing and have found that the distances have gradually improved. Not only has my strength improved, my vertical jumping has also improved thus showing that the muscles in my legs have also become a lot stronger and powerful. This is probably because of the squats included within sessions.
I felt that these were too easy in the early stages of the 6-weeks but once the weight was gradually increased, I found I was benefiting from them a great deal, finding them more and more comfortable each week. The stick drop test did not increase and in fact decreased. This could be due to my selective attention and not concentrating during the test. Putting the psychological factors aside, the reason for my decrease could simply be that whilst I have been training to improve my power, strength and flexibility I did not incorporate any exercises within the programme that would directly improve my reflexes.
This was because developing reflexes is only really improved through lots of practice such as sprinting when you hear the sound of a gun over and over again. The other way is through psychology. Selective attention is the brains filter of deciding what is important and what isn’t. This is slightly irrelevant in javelin because javelin is closer to being a closed event rather than being open. This means that there are few factors within the environment that could affect my performance and that I must take into account.
I am glad to say that my reflexes were the only aspect of my fitness not to improve with my flexibility also progressing. I managed to gain an extra 3cms on my sit and reach test. I consider the reason for this to be due to the fact that before I carried out this programme I was not training as often as I was during those 6-weeks and therefore not warming up and cooling down so often. Because of this I was stretching my muscles and joints more often and naturally improved my flexibility. I have also noticed a big difference in my normal training nights at the athletics track.
The distances I am throwing are improving and I’m finding it a lot easier to throw the javelin because: * My flexibility is improved and therefore can get my body into better positions to throw the javelin. * My strength and power have both improved and therefore have more force within myself to throw the javelin I now understand the benefits of weight training and have decided that it would only be sensible for me to continue with my training at the gym. I feel that I have the knowledge to continue setting targets for myself and hopefully with continuous hard work I will reach those standards.
There were also benefits from my PEP that were not only physical but also psychological. These include facts such as my motivation and self-esteem. I now feel much more motivated towards my training away from the track because I appreciate the benefits that I will get out of continuing my training. I look forward to my next session with a lot of excitement because I know that I will improve from it. Also my self-esteem has improved because I now feel a lot better about myself and more confident in my own abilities.
This motivation helps me a lot because I have this feeling towards not only my weight sessions, but also my technical sessions on club nights. I will continue these sessions for as long as possible and maintain the hard work so as to benefit from them as much as possible. I will also carry on with filling out my evaluation sheets after each session because I find them very helpful when it comes to my following sessions. I hope that in doing this I will one day become a major competitor in the world of athletics.