I have chosen to base my PEP on is hockey. Within in hockey there are certain components of fitness that are needed to ensure that the athlete is performing to the best of their ability.

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Contents

Hockey CV

Planning and researching the PEP

Aims and Hypothesis

Warm Up

Cool Down

The cardiovascular system

Muscles

Diet

Energy systems

Principles of training

Training methods

Fitness testing

Outline of training sessions

Training programme

Results and graphs

Evaluation

Hockey C.V

Hertfordshire county hockey squad U9s – U11s (captain at U11 for 2 years)

Avon county hockey squad U13s – U17s (captain at U15s and U17s)

West of England hockey squad U15s – U17s.

England Hockey trials for U16s and U18s.

Planning and researching

I have chosen to base my PEP on is hockey. Within in hockey there are certain components of fitness that are needed to ensure that the athlete is performing to the best of their ability.

The different components of fitness are:

 - the extent to which muscles can exert force by contracting against resistance (e.g. holding or restraining an object or person)

 - the ability to exert maximum muscular contraction instantly in an explosive burst of movements. The two components of power are strength and speed. (e.g. jumping or a sprint start)

 - the ability to perform a series of explosive power movements in rapid succession in opposing directions (e.g. ZigZag running or cutting movements)

 - the ability to control the body's position, either stationary (e.g. a handstand) or while moving (e.g. a gymnastics stunt)

 - the ability to achieve an extended range of motion without being impeded by excess tissue, i.e. fat or muscle (e.g. executing a leg split)

 - a single muscle's ability to perform sustained work (e.g. rowing or cycling)

 - the heart's ability to deliver blood to working muscles and their ability to use it (e.g. running long distances)

 - a muscle's ability to perform a maximum contraction time after time (e.g. continuous explosive rebounding through an entire basketball game)

- the ability to integrate the above listed components so that effective movements are achieved.

(http://www.brianmac.co.uk/conditon.htm)

All 9 of these components are split into two main groups of fitness:

Physical fitness refers to the capacity of an athlete to meet the varied physical demands of their sport without reducing the athlete to a fatigued state. These include strength, endurance, speed and flexibility.

Or

Motor fitness refers to the ability of an athlete to perform successfully at their sport. These include agility, balance, co-ordination and power.

For my PEP I will have to choose one of these components for me to concentrate on and improve over the training period. The main components of fitness used in hockey are:

Cardiovascular endurance-As a hockey match consist of 2 halves of 35 minutes with less than a 5 minute break at half time, a hockey player has to be very cardiovascularly fit to allow them to perform at their best for the whole 70 minutes.

Agility- In the game of hockey you have to be able to change direction quickly and still be able to keep control of your body’s movement. An example of this would be having to change direction if you got tackled or to avoid a tackle.

 Co-ordination- during a game of hockey you have to be able to control two or more limbs at the same time. An example of this would be making a pass whilst you were running.

As I have narrowed it down to the components more specific to my sport I can narrow it down even more to the position to which I play. As I play in centre midfield the most specific component is cardio vascular fitness as I have to move all over the pitch to support both the attack and defence, whereas improving agility would be more helpful for a striker as they have to be able to change direction quickly to shake off defenders and take the ball round them.

Aims and Hypothesis  

The main aim of the PEP is to improve my cardiovascular endurance to help improve my performance, however through training to improve this I should also see I a slight improvement in my muscular endurance and agility.

My hypothesis is that my cardiovascular fitness will improve through training. This will be evident in my fitness testing as the weeks in the programme progress.

My null hypothesis is that my cardiovascular will not improve through training.

By the end of this ten week programme I hope to have achieved a higher fitness level enabling me to maintain a high level of skill output for longer. By being more cardiovascularly fit it should improve my decision making, passing and defending duties as I will fatigue slower. By completing my 10 week programme not only will my CV endurance improve but my agility and muscular endurance  should also improve, meaning that I will become a better hockey player and add more value to the team.

Warm up

The warm up is a very important aspect of the training, as without it transition from the body at rest to intense activity will be too great, the muscles will not cope and injury could result because of this.

A warm up is “the method of preparing the body for exercise involving light exercise, stretching and practice skilled related movement patterns involved in sporting activity about to begin.” (Advanced pe for edexcel)

 A properly structured warm up should consist of 3 activities;

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Gross motor activity- this should involve all the major muscle groups and acts as both pulse and respiratory rate raiser. There should be some gentle mobilisation of the joints to loosen and lubricate them by the secretion of synovial fluid. This should last 5-10 minutes.

Flexibility activities- to warm, loosen and relax muscles by increasing blood flow and general preparatory stretching. This should last  10-15 minutes and should consist of different types of stretching, as this will reduce muscle stiffness by contracting eccentrically and concentrically.

Activity or sport specific exercises- these should ling to the demands of the activity, this ...

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