My programme - The sport I take part in is football .I play regularly for the school team.

AS and A Level Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

GCSE PE COURSEWORK

My programme

The sport I take part in is football .I play regularly for the school team. I am 15 years old, this is important because when designing a training programme you need to consider that being a boy my body wont be fully developed until I am about 20 years old. This means that my bones won’t be fully-grown yet and my muscles will also still be developing. My current health is good. I have no illnesses and currently have no injuries. My current fitness level is above average. Average fitness level is the average level of fitness of the people of my age group. I have a high muscular strength and power but a low flexibility level. My current weekly routine would be –

I walk about 3km to and from school each day.

I play waterpolo once a week for Salisbury U-18’s
I play football for the school team up to twice a week
I play football at lunch with my friends most lunchtimes

The fitness tests that I have done that are relevant to my plan are the Cooper 12 Minute run test in which I ran 2700 metres which is in the above average ability group. I wish to improve my endurance because a high endurance level would be very advantageous in football. The last relevant test that I did is the HandGrip Dynamometer test and I scored 46kgs in this test which means I have a high muscular strength which is helpful in football because it means I can run very quickly, make a tackle and then pass the ball up the field

If you are fit then your heart rate will go up less and less quickly than if you are unfit. Also when you stop exercising it will go down much quicker and go back your resting heart rate than if you are unfit.

The reasons I want to get fitter are because the fitter you get the harder it is to get injuries. Being fit strengthens your joints and bones. It also reduces body fat, which means there is less pressure on your heart. Being fitter would also improve my general performance in all the sports which I play.

There is only one exercise that I really dislike and that is running on treadmills inside a gym. I dislike it because I find it boring and very tedious. Instead of running on treadmills in my training programme I will do my running out in the countryside.

Aspects of fitness

Agility – agility is the ability to change direction and your body position very quickly. This is very important in football because it is a fast moving game.

Muscular Endurance – the ability to continue working your muscles for sustained periods of time. This is important in football to stay in the game effectively

Strength – strength is the ability to exert a lot of force on an immovable object. This is important in football when jumping for a header and when you sprint for the ball from a stand-still

Flexibility – flexibility is the ability to move a joint through a wide selection of movement. Good flexibility would help football because it would mean I would have a fuller range of movement in individual strides.

Speed – speed is how quickly you react to something and carry out a certain movement. For example the ball bounces off the crossbar and into play and you react to it bouncing off and sprint to it

Stamina – stamina is muscular endurance. It is important in football in general play

Explosive & Dynamic Strength – you use explosive strength to exert force in one very short but fast movement and dynamic strength to apply force repeatedly. For example, shooting, and then following up in case of a goalkeeper error

Exercises

Distance running, this would improve my endurance and the main muscles it will work are my quadriceps, hamstrings gastrocnemius and gluteals.

Distance swimming, this will improve my endurance and it will work most of my muscles, including the quadriceps, hamstrings, ...

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Stamina – stamina is muscular endurance. It is important in football in general play

Exercises

Distance running, this would improve my endurance and the main muscles it will work are my quadriceps, hamstrings gastrocnemius and gluteals.

Distance swimming, this will improve my endurance and it will work most of my muscles, including the quadriceps, hamstrings, gastrocnemius, gluteals, triceps, biceps, deltoids, trapezius, pectorals and abdominals.

Heavy weight sessions, these will improve my explosive strength, the main muscles I will be working on are, quadriceps, hamstrings, biceps, triceps and deltoids.

The Circuit

The length of the programme will vary on what I am doing each day. I aim to be running in under 20 minutes for the shorter runs I intend to do of 4000m and then as I gradually increase them to 5500m towards the end of the programme I will try to run in 25 minutes.

When in the gym doing my weights sessions I will be on either my upper body or lower body, depending on what I am doing that day.

Intensity will be important in my programme because football is a very physically demanding game and without a high level of fitness my performance will not be as good. If I train with high intensity then my fitness will improve much more and I will be fit to play football.

Overload is important because it makes my body work harder and will therefore make me fitter and stops the body getting used to a specific work rate.

I have designed my programme in such a way that I will be working on my endurance more than my explosive strength because I feel that my endurance needs more training than my explosive strength does.

Warming up and warming down important because if I don’t warm up or down properly it can lead to injury and muscle damage. So it is important that a full warm up and warm down is done to prevent any possible problems.

Warm Up

Methods of warming up are that generally you start at your feet and work your way up your body. The main muscles that need to be warmed up are –

Lower Body

The hamstrings – these are warmed up by lying on the floor on your back and straighten your leg a keep the other bent. Hold the back of the straight legs and slowly pull it further and further towards your body until you cant go any further.

The hamstrings and lower back – you can warm these up by sitting on the floor with the soles of your feet together, sit tall and bring your feet towards your body until a stretch is felt and then slowly lean forward.

The quadriceps – stand with your feet together and with one hand, hold the lace area of your foot and pull it up to your gluteals. Slightly squeeze your hips to increase the stretch.

The gluteals – lie on the floor on your back and cross one ankle over the opposite knee, using your hands to lift the other leg off the floor.

Upper Body

The abdominals – lie on the floor face down and keep your body as straight as possible, with your arms either side of your body and use them to support your body as you do this stretch. Slowly lift your upper body off the floor until a stretch is felt. Keep your head in line and keep your body as straight as possible.

Triceps – stand straight and put your hand behind your head, using your other arm, push down lightly on the elbow until a stretch is felt in the triceps of that arm

Deltoids – stand straight and put your arm out in front of you. Using the other arm, pull on the elbow and bring it across your body until a stretch is felt in the shoulder of that arm.

All stretches should be held for 8 to 10 seconds. You should also warm up both sides of the body. For example – the left and right legs both need warming up.

If possible, a warm up should be sports specific. This means that if you are playing football then you should do a pulse raising activity involving football. For example, you could dribble a football around the penalty area for a pulse raising activity.

Original Training Programme

This is what I intend on doing for my programme and I will keep to this schedule as closely as possible

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

To start with, the weight sessions will be as follows, and hopefully in this order aswel, depending on the availability off the equipment at the gym

chest press x 5, weight – 30kg
leg extensions x 5, weight – 30kg
incline chest fly x 5, weight – 25kg
abdominal curls x 5, weight – 10kg
shoulder press x 5, weight – 30kg
squats x 5, weight – 45kg
lateral raise x 5, weight – 20kg
leg curls x 5, weight – 25kg
side bends x 10,weight – 30kg

I aim to increase the weights that I am lifting by the end of the training programme so that they are as follows -

chest press x 5, weight – 40kg
leg extensions x 5, weight – 40kg
incline chest fly x 5, weight – 35kg
abdominal curls x 5, weight – 10kg
shoulder press x 5, weight – 40kg
squats x 5, weight – 50kg
lateral raise x 5, weight – 25kg
leg curls x 5, weight – 30kg
side bends x 10,weight – 35kg

Although it seems a big difference, I hope to be able to lift those weights by the end of the programme and believe that if I train to the schedule I have arranged I will be able to it.

Monitoring Progress

After each week I will be writing a brief report on how the training during the week went and how I think I did during the week and how my training effected my performance in my game.

Week 1

Felt very good after the first week didn’t notice any change in my fitness and I played to the same level as I played before. I think I trained well and didn’t pick up any injuries and have nothing to complain about.

Week 2

Still feeling the same level of fitness as I did in the first week and before I started my programme. No noticeable changes so far.

Week 3

I think my training is starting to pay off. I played well today this week and wasn’t as tired at the end of the game as I remember I was before the start of my programme

Week 4

Bad news this week, I have had to have fluid removed from my kneecap due to a friendly game of football going wrong. It is has stopped my from running for 2 weeks but I should be able to swim gently in about 1 week. I couldn’t play football this week due to my injury. I can continue with my upper body muscular strength training, which is good news.

Week 5

I have been swimming this week but I am still not allowed to run. I gave football a go this week but I came off in the second half because I didn’t want to damage my knee any more. I found myself full of energy during my upper body training sessions thought and found myself doing more than I aimed to do.

Week 6

I went back to the doctors at the start of the week and I have made I full recovery but still have to take it a bit easy for another week unfortunately. I played football this week without any problems and actually found myself playing with ease and was feeling very fit.

Evaluation

Planning of the programme

I think the tests I did before my training programme could have been done better. I think they could have been better because of the time of day that I did them. Due to time restrictions in our P.E lessons we did the tests across different days and times in the day. We did the endurance test (Cooper 12 Minute Run) after lunchtime where I had been running around playing football all lunch time, so this would have made my result in the test worse and therefore less accurate. The explosive strength test we did in the morning before lunch. This wasn’t such a good idea because I hadn’t eaten my lunch yet and didn’t have as much energy due to this and I think this had a bad effect on my result in this test.

The exercises that I chose for my training programme could have been a bit more exiting I think. This is because when I first started running and swimming I was feeling very bored after a short time after I had started the session. The gym sessions I felt were good and although I had to travel a fair distance to get to the gym I was enjoying it when I got there.

I think that the order of my exercises was good because I got all of the training I wanted to do into one week. I got a day to rest in between each session, apart from the gym session because I played waterpolo on a Sunday and I did the gym session the day before.

The only principal of training I didn’t adapt to my programme was “Tedium”. When designing the programme I didn’t really think about this. I used all the others however.

Frequency – at the start of the programme I was only doing 2 sessions a week and then by the last week I was doing 5.

Intensity – the intensity of my training sessions increase as I went further into the programme I was making it more and more intense

Time – at the start of the programme I was running for only 20 minutes over 4000m, and towards the end of the programme I was running for over 25 minutes over 5500m.

Tedium – I didn’t think about tedium when designing the programme so I can’t really write anything for it.

Performing of the Programme

I had to make a few changes to my programme after I injured myself at start of the forth week. Mainly I was taking sessions out of the programme because I wasn’t allowed to run and was only allowed to swim gently.

I had no problems with the order of the order of the exercising and I think this is where my programme succeeded.

My feelings during the programme were that at the start I really didn’t want to do it. When I first started running, I got spotted by a group of my friends, which was very embarrassing and made me want to be doing the programme even less. But as I got further into the programme I actually enjoyed running and the getting to the swimming pool and the gym was no longer a problem as I wanted to do it, rather than sit at home.

Final Evaluation / Conclusion

To discover if I made any improvements or worsening of fitness I did the tests that I did before the start of my programme which were the Cooper 12 minute run and the hand grip dynamometer. I tried to do them to as close to the time I did the original tests.

Before I actually did the tests I felt that I had improved at both of the 2 areas I wanted to improve in, I think this because although I missed nearly 2 weeks of the programme I did keep to the original plan of my sessions. Also when playing football games I felt fitter than I did before I started the programme.

After doing the tests I discovered that I had actually improved in both areas that I wanted to improve.

In the Cooper 12 minutes run the distance I ran was 2700m before the training programme, after the programme I managed to run an impressive 3500m.

In the hand grip dynamometer, before my training programme I scored 46kg and after I had improved and got 52kg.

Enjoyment / Interest

At the start of the training programme I found myself thinking, “I really can’t be bothered with this”. I think this is only natural because most people would rather be out with their friends than running long distances in hot weather. But by the end of the second week I found myself enjoying myself whilst out running. This is because I could start feeling that the training was starting to take effect. Also I started taking my Walkman out running with me so I could listen to music whilst running. Swimming I found fun because I enjoy swimming anyway. In the gym sessions I enjoyed these because I went down to the gym with my brother so I had somebody to talk to.

After finishing the programme I still had almost a week before I went back to school and I decided because I was bored without the programme I would carry on with it. Now I’m back at school I have continued with programme but due to restrictions on the time I have I now do a much more intense programme but with only 3 sessions a week after school. Because I know have gym equipment in my house I don’t need to worry about getting to the gym. However, because my parents wont buy a swimming pool for our garden I still have to walk the 3 or 4 miles to get to the pool.

Matt Windows