PEP The aspect of fitness I am going to develop is strength. This is because my chosen sport, golf, has had rapid improvements in club technology enabling players to hit the ball further.

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Personal Exercise Programme                                                   

1. Purpose/aim of PEP.

Age: 16

Gender: male

Height: 5ft8

Weight: 10.5 stones

Current amount of activity per week

Monday: One 50-minute session of helping coach year 7 students rugby.

               One 50 minute session of a CSLA coaching lesson.

Tuesday: One 50 minute session a of Physical Education lesson.

               Occasional extra-curricular football or cricket match.

Wednesday: Occasional extra-curricular football or cricket match.

Thursday: Occasional extra-curricular football or cricket match.

Friday: Occasional round of golf, or practice session.

Saturday: Play golf – either a round, practice session or a lesson.

Sunday: Play golf – normally a competitive round, occasionally practice.

Current intensity.

I feel my current intensity of exercise is quite good. this is because I participate in school PE lessons, and extra-curricular activities such as football and cricket. And my chosen sport, golf, requires a walking distance of on average 5 miles, with me usually playing on Saturday and Sunday. However, my level of intensity could be improved. As golf is a slow game it does not require a great level of  fitness, therefore it could be said that my only intense fitness activity is my PE lessons and extra-curricular activities.

Current level of fitness

I feel my level of fitness is quite good, but it could be improved. This is because I enjoy participating in school PE lessons and extra-curricular activities such as football and cricket. However, my chosen sport golf, does not require a great level of fitness as it is not intense as football or rugby. Therefore I feel practice is more important than fitness.

The aspect of fitness I am going to develop is strength. This is because my chosen sport, golf, has had rapid improvements in club technology enabling players to hit the ball further. In order to counteract this, course designers are increasing the length of their golf courses. So in order to play the ever-lengthening courses at a high standard, the distance a player hits the ball is becoming more and more important. And I feel with a fairly intense training plan, specific to improving strength, the length I hit the ball will increase and as a result, my golf will improve.

General Fitness: the ability to cope effectively with the stresses of everyday life.

Specific Fitness: level beyond general fitness where a greater level of skill is required in order to meet the more specific demand of an activity.

Fitness also has both health and skill related aspects.

Health related aspects.

These include: aerobic capacity, strength, flexibility and body composition. These contribute towards a healthy body. Everyone would benefit by developing these components of fitness to some degree.

Strength:

“The ability to exert an amount of force over a period of time, or to withstand fatigue.” Explosive strength is the most relevant type of strength to golf, as the golf swing involves one sharp, flowing movement, with all the main muscle groups involved. And the stronger the players muscles, the easier it is to generate swing speed, which will result in the ball travelling further. Therefore when active in my fitness sessions, I will make sure explosive strength is a main part of each session. A good test to develop strength would be the US Navy muscle endurance test. Lasting 4 minutes, it includes 1 minute of press-ups, 1 minute of burpees and 2 minutes of sit-ups.

Aerobic capacity:

“The maximum amount of oxygen that can be taken in and used by the body in one minute.” Also known as a persons VO2 Maximum. This may not seem relevant to golf, as it involves walking rather than running. However, an average golf course has a total length of around 5 miles, so in order for the player to perform at a high level throughout the 18 holes and not become fatigued, a good aerobic capacity is required. And with some competitions involving 2 rounds in one day, it is vital that the player does not suffer from fatigue. A good test to develop aerobic capacity would be the bleep test. This involves the athlete running a series of shuttle runs between two cones or lines exactly 20 metres apart, keeping in time with the “bleep” signals given by an audio tape. The time between the signals decrease as the levels increase, and to complete a level, 10 shuttles must be completed. Meaning it it increasingly difficult to maintain the set pace. Eventually, the athlete will stop when his/her VO” Max. is reached.

Flexibility: “The range of movement possible around a joint.” Like strength, flexibility is very important when generating power or swing speed. This is because the bigger the players shoulder turn, the bigger the coil he creates. And the more flexibility a player has, the bigger the shoulder turn he can create. A big coil allows the player to release the arms on the downswing quicker. Therefore meaning the ball flies off the clubface quicker, which makes it carry further in the air. A good test to know an athletes flexibility is the sit and reach test. The athlete sits down and places the soles of his/her feet against the face of a bench that has been turned on its side. The athlete then reaches out as far as he/she can, if the athletes hands do not reach the bench, they are given a negative score. Whereas if they reach out past the bench then they are given a positive score.

Body composition: “Used to describe the percentages of fat, bone and muscle in the human body.” Like aerobic capacity, it may not seem as significant to golf as unfit people who are overweight can usually cope with a round of golf. However, they may struggle to perform towards the end of a round because a round of golf can drain the body physically, as well as mentally. Therefore it helps if the player has a good body composition to increase his chances of performing throughout the round. In addition, the end of a round normally involves the most pressured moments, so mental concentration is very important. A good body composition will help this also. A good test to estimate an athletes body composition is to measure skin folds at specific places on the body; usually done at the bicep.

Skill related aspects.

These include: speed, power, balance, reaction time, coordination and agility. The skill-related aspects of fitness are far more appropriate to the sports performer who may wish to develop some of them through additional training.

Speed:

“How fast you can move part of your body or the whole of your body.” Speed could be considered important to golf, as the faster you swing the club, the further the ball goes. However, the speed of the swing is generated by the power created by the backswing. So it could be said that the speed of the swing is generated by flexibility and strength. Therefore in order to create greater swing speed, strength and flexibility must be developed first. That is why I feel strength is more important for me to develop. A good test to measure an athletes speed is the Illinois agility run. This involves the athlete completing the course (right) as fast as they can. The test should measure 10 metres in length with each centre cone having 3.3 metres between them.

Power:

“The application of both strength and speed.”

Power is a very important aspect of the golf swing as the more power a player generates, the quicker the swing speed. Therefore the ball will go further. However, like speed, the greater strength a player has, the greater power he will create. This is another why I have chosen to develop strength.

Balance:

“The ability to maintain equilibrium.”

Balance is a very important aspect of the golf swing. A better balance increases the likelihood of a clean, pure strike on the ball, which increases the chances of the ball going towards the intended target. Balance can be improved by swinging the club slower, or adopting a wider stance.

Coordination:

“Involves putting the relevant motor programmes in the right order, and effectively using the neuromuscular system to produce smooth and efficient movement.”

The golf swing requires a huge amount of coordination, arguably more coordination is required than in any other sport. Coordination is the most difficult skill related aspect of fitness to develop. As there is no certain way to improve it, just lots and lots of practice.

Fitness Tests

We do fitness tests to measure how fit we are. And generally, the fitter we are, the healthier we are. Different tests examine different aspects of fitness (shown below) enabling us to get accurate results and see where we can improve our fitness.

Preliminary Test Results

 

Overall, I think my results were quite good. However, they could be slightly improved. I am above average in the bleep test (level 11) and on average in the sit and reach test (+2). Although I am below average in the Illinois agility run (20.19) and the US navy muscle endurance test (41). So I could improve in my speed and my strength. And as I have chosen strength as my aspect of fitness to improve then this enhances my desire to improve it.

I think my main strength was the bleep test result (level 11), as it is my only result above average. I think my weakness was the US Navy muscle endurance test. This is because my result was below average more than any other test. This is because I think I lack strength more than anything else, which is proven by my results and why I have chosen to develop it.

As I have said, golf requires a great amount of strength in order to hit the ball greater distances, which increases the chances of playing the golf courses at a higher standard. And as my main weakness is strength, I feel that if I can improve my strength by a significant amount, I will be able to cope with the longer golf courses better than others.

Reliability: tests are repeatable and will produce similar results.

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I believe the tests were not very reliable. This is because the only tests that can be repeated quickly were the Illinois agility run and the sit and reach test. As they were quick and simple and did not require a lot of equipment. Also, it does not make a significant difference to the result if the athlete Is or is not motivated. Therefore they are likely to produce similar result. An injury to the athlete would be the only thing to produce vastly different results.

 On the other hand, I believe that the bleep test and the US ...

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